464 BULLETIN OF TIIE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



New England coast in a short time. It is a well-known fact that many of 

 the food-fish follow in the wake of the menhaden; and it is also a well- 

 known fact that a huge proportion of the food-fish have left the coast since 

 the menhaden have been checked. The present prices foe food-fish vouch 

 for this statement. In the spring when the menhaden leave the gulf for 

 the Northern shores, they start in three different schools, or run but a 

 few days apart, and if undisturbed would soon fill our sounds, bays, 

 and rivers, from Mount Desert to Cape May. This fish is the best known 

 bait for halibut, cod, haddock, mackerel, bass, lobsters, &c. In fact it 

 is a iish that they all love to get a bite at. Without this bait the above 

 fishing has proved a failure compared with what it was when there were 

 plenty of menhaden ou our coasts. 



I will now show where and how the menhaden are broken up and 

 driven from the coast. Iu the rear of this large school of fish there 

 follows a large school of bluefish. About the 1st of May, there starts 

 a fleet of steamers to meet these fish. They fiud them two hundred or 

 more miles south of Long Island. Then commences the massacre, and 

 by the time that is over the second school overtakes the first school, 

 and their fate is nearly the same. By the time they reach Long Island 

 the third school, driven on by the large amount of bluefish, overtakes 

 the first and second school, and the menhaden re-form to'follow the coast 

 of Long Island. The delay these steamers have caused these fish in 

 reaching Long Island has given a part of the bluefish an opportunity to 

 flank, and some go to the front, off Montauk Point. About June 1, a 

 fleet of seventy or more steamers, .all engaged in catching these fish, 

 are off Montauk Point. Before this line of steamers and the bluefish, 

 the great school of menhaden makes a hasty retreat, going back thirty 

 or forty miles a day. Now the steamers have all loaded and gone. As 

 the darkness of night comes on, the fish re-form and come back where 

 they were the morning before. The steamers have come back also. 

 The bluefish have become hungry and want their morning's meal. Then 

 the same battle is fought as the day before. As the steamers come onto 

 the grounds the third morning, they still find the fish trying to get 

 around the point, but are driven back as before. As they return on 

 the fourth morning there are not many to be found. Nine-tenths of 

 the fish have disappeared from the sight of man, and steam-power has 

 not revealed their whereabouts. 



What is now wanted is a law of equity to protect these fish from the 

 purse-seine until the 1st of September in each year. By that time they 

 will have reproduced in countless numbers, and the fish will have be- 

 come ripe for the harvest. Then they, of course, belong to the fisher- 

 men. With such protection, our coast would be supplied with an abun- 

 dance of fish. If neglected, it will cost the United States many millions 

 of dollars for the privilege of fishing in the British Provinces, all of 

 which we might have saved by careful and proper protection. 



Adamsville, B. 1., January 8, 1883. 



