260 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



certaiu share of the tvotal yiekl, jj^eneraliy $9 to $10 i»er thous:atKl fish. 

 The boats of the fishermen, 14 feet long and 3| feet broad, can, in fa- 

 vorable weather, carry about 320 fish each. By sudden storms the fish- 

 erman risks the loss of his whole cargo, as the only way to save himself 

 is to allow the boat to upset and drop the entire cargo in the water. 

 The light boat will of itself again stand upright. 



A skilled fisherman can catch 1,000 fish a day. He stands erectin his 

 little boat, on both sides of which he casts a line furnished with a lead and 

 with two hooks. If fish are very plentiful, he is kept busy all the time, 

 hauling iu alternately the right and left line, taking the fish off the hooks, 

 stunning them either by a blow on the head or by violently throwing 

 them against a piece of wood, and baiting liis hook afresh. The lines, 

 which have the thickness of a quill, are invariably let down to the l^ot- 

 tom, and thereupon hauled in 1 fathom. As, from our vessel, we fished 

 at a depth of nO to 70 fathoms, the hauling in of the lines was no easy 

 work, especially if we take into consideration that we were not properly 

 equipped for this kind of work. In order to protect their hands, the 

 fishermen use so-called ''nippers" — rings made of good wool, which are 

 drawn over the hand, and secure the lines merely by friction. 



For want of better bait, we used pieces of salt bacon ; as soon, however, 

 as a fish had been caught, portions of it were cut out and used as bait 

 The fishermen prefer to use as bait the fresh red flesh of the salmon, or 

 the glaring white flesh of the cuttle-fish, which is said to attract the cod 

 more than any other bait. Even pieces of fish taken from the stomach 

 of a cuttle-fish did excellent ser^fice as bait. 



The average value of a pound of salt cod in San Francisco (fresh cod 

 is not brought into the market there) is 10 cents. We did not allow the 

 opportunity to pass of enjoying some good fishing. It is true that our 

 drag-net apparatus was not well suited to great depths, but we neverthe- 

 less succeeded in bringing up from the bottom considerable booty, the 

 floating net moreover supplying us with a good many objects of interest 

 from the surface-water, particularly in the line of Medusse. 



A PROPOSED PO.'VD FOR REARING STRIPED BASS (ROCCUS EIIVE- 



ATUS) IN DELAWARE BAY. 



By E. R. ]VOR]\V. 



[From a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.J 



I send you by mail an eel-skin, not on account of its size, but on ac- 

 count of its color. The lower part, or tail part, was a shiny black when 

 alive, shading to a dull black towards the head, and a dark lead color 

 on the belly. We caught two of these in December after other eels had 

 buried ; the other one was a fourth larger than this one. All eels that 

 we have ever seen here have been either green or pale yellow on the 

 back and white on the belly. Is this a distinct species or a sea variety? 



