Even the names are seductive: Gull, Spectacle, Duck, Turtle, Herring, Round, Sough, Snow, Higgins, Dyer, Great, many of which were admired by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote of them in Cape Cod.

FORBES: Wellfleet Ponds Are Secret Cape Cod Treasures

Even an empty jetty, like the melancholy Steeplechase Pier at Coney Island in New York, draws Russian and Chinese fishermen eager to net the tiny fish that gleam in silver schools round the piles, for the little fry will catch bigger fish, and the bigger ones (mostly herring) are worth curing and eating.

ECONOMIST: Musings on a favourite memento mori