BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 195 



cral miles out to sea, and affects the rivers for a long distance inland, 

 making the surface smooth and calul. Fisli are dying by thousands 

 and lion ting like chips on the surface of the water. It is supposed 

 that they are poisoned by this oily scum, but whence the destroyer 

 comes nobody knows. A suggestion that a ship loaded with oil may 

 have foundered in the vicinity is scouted, because from Lockwood's 

 Folly all the way to Little River the scum is found, and the coast is 

 strewn with the dead "fish all the way. In the salt water about Shallotto 

 Eiv^erand Tubb's Inlet are immense quantities of dead fish of every kind, 

 and it is feared that there are no live fish left in Shallotte Eiver or with- 

 in 10 miles of its mouth. The water api>ears to have become as oil, and 

 the wind seems to make no impression on it. [From the Narragansett 

 Herald, Narragansett Pier, E. I., July 3, 18SG.] 



ei FSSH IIV PIUGET SOUND. 



By J. P. IIAMMONI>. 



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



I have been engaged in the fishing business (making oil from herring 

 and dogfish, and salting and smoking salmon and herring) on Puget 

 Sound for the last seventeen years, and am well acquainted with the 

 different species of fish caught on the sound, and in the Strait of Juan 

 de Fuca. 



From 1SG9 to 1877 it was not an uncommon occurrence for us to catch 

 from 200 to 300 barrels of herring in a night, but since 1877 they have 

 been growing less in number, until now the largest night's work is 

 about 20 barrels. This is a great falling off, and it is much the same 

 way with all other fish on the sound. Previous to 1869 there had been 

 a great business done in catching codfish and winter salmon on the 

 same fishing ground where we catch herring. The cod were dried and 

 the salmon pickled and shipped to San Francisco, but at the time of 

 my coming (in 1869) these two varieties were almost extinct. For then, 

 in an entire season of three and one-half months at the most, we caught 

 4 or 5 cod with our herring, and it is the same now. This is winter 

 fishing, from the middle of November to the 1st of March. 



If we then caught 3 or 4 barrels of salmon, that was considered a 

 good catch, and now 30 or 40 salmon is the best we can do. We have 

 a species of salmon averaging about 7 pounds, which come every year 

 in September and run until October, a space of about six weeks; but 

 they are also becoming scarce, although there is still quite a business 

 done with them. Then there is another species called by white people 

 the humpback salmon, on account of their getting a large hump on the 

 male salmon's back about the time they are ready to spawn. The In- 

 dians call them haddo salmon. 



There is also the dogfish, which we catch for the oil contained in its 



