24 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



been collected, but following are a few of the remarks with which this 

 subject is introduced in the report already referred to : 



"An illustration of the rapidity with which the lobsters of a small area 

 may be caught up, is furnished by a salt-water inlet on the coast of 

 Maine, in which lobsters were at one time very abundant. This basin 

 opens directly into the sea, and is sufficiently large to have afforded a re- 

 munerative fishery to several lobstermen. Two years' time was sufficient 

 to reduce the supply of lobsters to such an extent that fishing became 

 unprofitable. After an interval of about five years they again became 

 abundant, and the supply was once more exhausted. Had this inlet 

 not been so situated that it readily received supplies from without, it is 

 f>robable that it would have required a much longer time to become 

 replenished. 



" On a much larger scale has been the depletion of the once noted 

 grounds about Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which at one time furnished 

 nearly all the lobsters consumed in Kew York City. In the early part 

 of the century, this fishery was entirely in the hands of fishermen from 

 other States, principally Connecticut, who came to Cape Cod with their 

 smacks, and, after catching a load, carried it to New York or Boston. 

 As early as 1812 the citizens of Provincetown realized the danger of 

 exhausting the grounds about their town, and succeeded in having a 

 protective law passed by the State legislature. More or less stringent 

 regulations respecting the lobster fishery of Cape Cod have been in 

 force from that time down to date, and they have probably done good 

 service in prolonging the fishery ; but the period of its prosperity has 

 long since passed, as continued overfishing has so exhausted the grounds 

 on almost every portion of Cape Cod that they are no longer profitable 

 even to the few men who still set their traps there. From the sketch 

 of this region, given further on, it will be seen that the decrease has 

 not been a temporary one, although an entire rest for a long period of 

 time might possibly allow it to recover more or less of its former abun- 

 dant supplies. As it is, no large catches are now made, and but few 

 lobsters are carried away from the Cai)e. 



" The immediate vicinity of Provincetown has suffered most in this 

 respect, but scarcely more than any portion of the coast from that town 

 to Boston on the one side and to New Bedford on the other. A delay 

 in the publication of this report enables the writer to add a note for the 

 southern portion of this region, covering the i^eriod down to July, 1885. 

 Vineyard Sound proper and the vicinity of Wood's Holl, Mass., have 

 afforded but poor ca^tches for a number of years, but the region about 

 Gay Head has continued to attract the lobstermen down to the present 

 tune. Each succeeding year, however, lobsters have appeared to be 

 less plentiful, and during the spring months and June of 1885 scarcely 

 anything has been done. The fishermen are discouraged, and are forced 

 to attribute the scarcity to overfishing, the possibility of which many 

 of them have all along denied. At Cuttyhuuk Island the catch for 



