DECREASE OF FOOD-FISHES IN AMERICAN WATERS. 27 



in about the same ratio. The almost entire absence of squeteague in the estuaries, 

 their usual haunts until ready to migrate southward, is thought by some to have 

 been due to the scarcity of their usual food supply, resulting from the intensely cold 

 weather of the previous winter, and there is some reason in the opinion. But, as will 

 presently be shown, there are other deeper-seated and fart her- reaching causes. 



Bluefish. — About sixty years ago, after a long absence, bluefish appeared in great 

 schools along the Jersey coast. Then, as ever, they displayed the same insatiable 

 voracity that has earned for them the appropriate designation of " unmitigated butch- 

 ers." They increased iu numbers with each succeeding season until about twenty 

 years ago, when their plentifulness seemed to have reached its climax. Tt is on record, 

 about that time, that in a single day one fisherman, handling three lines, caught 265 

 in Barnegat Bay; the day following, 261. It was not unusual for a party of two or 

 three to take as many hundred in six or eight hours fishing. But, like the squeteague, 

 they have steadily lost numerical strength. They are rarely seen now in Barnegat or 

 any other of the bays on the coast. More of them were taken in a single season then 

 than have been caught during the whole of the past ten years. 



It would be hazarding little to assert that the number of bluefish on the coast for 

 the past decade, as compared with that of twenty years ago, is ten to one in favor 

 of the latter. Why this remarkable decrease ? It has certainly not resulted from 

 trolling hooks, nor from pound nets or weirs. It can not be reasonably charged to a 

 lack of food, as the bluefish is such an expert hunter and such an indiscriminate 

 feeder that even though its menhaden resources have been largely reduced, there are 

 other sources of supply upon which it can draw, the kind or quality being seemingly 

 of trivial importance, provided there is enough. Naturally, less aggressive food-fishes 

 are prominent among those that suffer from its attacks, and here we have another 

 contributing cause to the prevailing scarcity of the edibles. 



The Menhaden. — The menhaden can not properly be classed among the food-fishes, 

 though there are some that give them a place at their tables. They, however, play 

 such a conspicuous part in the subject under consideration that they demand special 

 attention. A prominent writer on ichthyology says of them : 



It is hard to surmise the menhaden's place iu nature; swarmiug in waters in countless myriads; 

 swimming iu closely packed unwieldy masses, helpless as flocks of sheep, near to the surface and at 

 the mercy of every enemy; destitute of means of defense or of oft'euse, their mission is unmistakably 

 to be eaten. 



That paragraph was written some ten years or more ago, and is as true in every 

 essential, save two, to-day as when it was penned. One of the exceptions is that of 

 the "countless myriads." There are still great numbers of menhaden along the coast, 

 but few compared with their former extraordinary abundance. The second exception 

 is that "their mission is unmistakably to be eaten. 1 ' While they are still the helpless 

 prey of all the larger carnivorous fishes, another use has been found for them. They 

 have formed the basis for a great industry. Millions of capital are invested in it, 

 and, like many other American enterprises, it has been and is being prosecuted with 

 such energy that a few years more of like effort will warrant the assertion that an 

 approximation to extermination will be the result. Already the decrease is so marked 

 that a number of the vessels employed have been withdrawn, the scarcity this season 

 having rendered their further use unprofitable. This diminution has not been the 

 result of one of those sudden and inexplicable fluctuations that characterize the 



