BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES PISH COMMISSION. 2G3 



143.-NOT£!^ OIV THE BI.IJEFISII, ITIOKTAI^ITY OF FLORIDA FI!>$HES, 



ETC.* 



By H. D. PIERCE. 



LFrom letters to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



The bluefish with us is a migratory fish, going north in the spring 

 and returning about the last of November. I never knew of any 

 being taken in summer. The fish I have taken while in spawn would 

 weigh, I should judge, about 6 or 7 pounds; the male fish were 

 not quite so large sa the female. I have never seen them in large 

 schools ; they come suddenly and leave the same way. I have never 

 seen or heard of any south of Cape Florida, although I have heard that 

 a few have been taken here in Biscayne Bay. Another thing I have 

 noticed about them is when you have a very cold winter north they are 

 more plenty than when you have a mild winter. If I had known that 

 information was wanted about their spawning, I could easily have pro- 

 cured it at that time ; but I will send my son, who is somewhat of a 

 naturalist, to observe them the coming winter and i)rocure such informa- 

 tion as you want about them. Will you give me some information as 

 to how to keep the ripe eggs so as to get them to you without their 

 spoiling, as the weather is very warm here at all times. 



In regard to my theory that it was cold water which killed the fish, I 

 did not mean in the Gulf of Mexico, but on the Atlantic seaboard of 

 Florida, where I have seen it happen several times, but I have no 

 doubt it is the same in the Gulf. I think that I ought to be a pretty. 

 good judge of cold water, as when a boy I took many a swim in 

 the ice-laden streams of Maine, and later in life many an involuntary 

 plunge into the waters of the Arctic Ocean to get out of the way of the 

 flukes of the bow-head whale ; and I must say that I never was so thor- 

 oughly chilled as on that afternoon in July on the coast of Florida. Ou 

 that occasion, while disrobed, I saw two or three fish floating about, just 

 alive. I caught one, what is called here a grouper, and carried it home. 

 The next day, upon going to the bea(;h, there were thousands of them 

 ashore, and many floating helplessly about on the surface of the water. 

 They extended about 2 miles along the beach. I have seen the same 

 thing twice since. The only reason or cause that I can give, and I do 

 not know as it will hold good, is that the Gulf Stream, in its rush north- 

 ward, must have a counter-current inshore, running south. If the 

 Stream can force the warm water of the tropics from the equator to 50^ 

 or 55^ north latitude, why may not the counter-current bring to Flor- 

 ida occasionally a body of water cold enough to kill fish such as live 

 in the tropics'? Of late years I have not kept myself posted at all 



* Continued from Bulletin, Vol. Ill, 1883, p. 332. 



