266 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



The returns of the pound-net fishery, published by the State of Massachusetts, 

 list very much larger annual catches for the strip of coast between Boston and 

 Cape Ann— chiefly at Manchester— in 1905, 1908, 1909, and 1910 (1,600 to 8,000 

 pounds) ; but inasmuch as a canvass of the Massachusetts fisheries made by the 

 United States Bureau of Fisheries brought no reports of scup caught along this 

 part of the shore line in the first of these years, while local inquiry has equally 

 failed to elicit rumors of any unusual incursions of scup at any time since then, 

 some other fish was probably responsible. 28 



Although scup are seldom or never plentiful enough to be of any importance, 

 eitber commercially or to the angler, in Massachusetts Bay, the evidence just 

 summarized shows that they are not only more constantly present there than are 

 other southern fishes (for instance squeteague or bluefish), but that they do not 

 show the wide fluctuations in abundance from year to year that characterize the 

 latter, for it seems that the bay supports a few scup every summer though never 

 many. The tremendous shrinkage that took place in the stock of scup off southern 

 Massachusetts between 1896 (prior to which the annual catch had usually been 

 from 1 to 3 million pounds) and 1905, since when it has seldom reached one-tenth 

 of that amount, was not accompanied by a disappearance from Massachusetts 

 Bay, as might have been expected if the local stock depended on drafts from the 

 south for its maintenance. Thus scup do not fall in the same category as bluefish, 

 weakfish, or menhaden, which come in abundance only when they are plentiful 

 over the northern parts of their range as a whole, and otherwise rarely or not at 

 all. They are regular visitors as far north as Cape Ann, though uncommon north 

 of Cape Cod. The fact that scup are about as likely to appear in one part of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay as another, as illustrated by the following table, supports this view. 



Catch of scup in pound nets and weirs on the coast of northern Massachusetts, from Cape Cod to 

 Cape Ann, 1 from 1891 to 1900, in pounds 



1 We omit catches for Barnstable, Dennis, and Yarmouth because these may include fish from the southern as well as from the 

 Massachusetts Bay shore of Massachusetts. 



2 From gill and sweep nets. 



s Although no scup are listed from Gloucester for 1895, a few were reported there both in that and in the previous summer. 



Cape Ann bounds the regular range of the scup. North of this point it 

 has been reported twice only 27 — at Eastport and about Casco Bay. On the 

 latter occasion (1896) — a year of plenty not only in Massachusetts Bay but to the 



38 Probably butterfish, which are not mentioned in these returns although undoubtedly caught in abundance in the traps in 

 question. 



27 Knight (1867) reported "porgies" in the Bay of Fundy on hearsay, but Gulf of Maine fishermen would be more likely to 

 apply that name to the menhaden than to scup. 



