BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 425 



was reduced to about $175 per mau, and the average size of lobsters 

 had greatly diminished. This caused the fishermeu to try farther out 

 from shore, and the fishery is uow mainly carried on in depths of 25 to 

 35 fathoms. The facts of these changes were furnished from many 

 places in this section between Cape Small Point and Pemaquid Point. 



The canneries have undoubtedly largely iniluenced this result on the 

 coast of Maine, as all sizes of lobsters large enough to pay for the 

 handling are consumed, and the ready market thus afibrded has tempted 

 the fishermen to save every specimen that enters their traps. It is un- 

 questionably this extensive destruction of the young that has hastened 

 the decrease ; but that the decrease is not solely due to the presence of 

 canneries is evidenced by the statements we have already made re- 

 garding other sections of the coast. 



In the Saco district, although there are no canneries located nearer 

 than Portland, a smack trade between the fishing grounds and the can- 

 neries to the eastward has recently been started, and several witnesses 

 have testified to a marked falling off in the proportionate catch since it 

 began. The average catch i)er man is now about one-third what it was 

 twenty years ago, and while in 1876 a barrel of lobsters averaged 65 

 by count, an average of 80 lobsters is now required to fill a barrel. 



On the ISTew Hampshire coast the decrease for twenty years is stated 

 to have been from 50 to 75 per cent. 



From Ehode Island and Connecticut we have comphiints regarding a 

 decrease in abundance and size of lobsters similar to those already noted 

 from the more ]S'orthern States; but the statements we have given 

 constitute but a small proportion of the evidence we have obtained. 



That this evidence is unimpeachable as to a general and lasting de- 

 crease we would not now affirm, but to our miiids it has been conclusive. 

 To press a definite and unfavorable opinion, however, regarding so ex- 

 tensive and valuable a fishery after the meager returns of a single in- 

 vestigation, extending through only one or two years, would scarcely be 

 justifiable, but it has seemed to us that public attention should be now 

 attracted to the subject, as it appears in the light of the Tenth Census. 



Tbe fishery has had such a rapid growth, and the demands upon it 

 have so exceeded its capacity, that the problem of weighing evidence 

 has been somewhat difficult. The total catch of lobsters has increased 

 from year to year, but so has the numl>er of fishermen and tlie number 

 of traps used even in greater proportion, and the grounds have been 

 enlarged until they now cover an exceedingly broad area, and extend 

 into deeper water than was ever dreamed of formerly in connection 

 with this fishery. The decrease in the average catch per trap and man, 

 in the yearly earnings and in the average size of lobsters, has kept 

 pace with the increase in the fishery; the inshore grounds in many 

 places have been nearly depleted, and in some of the deeper areas the 

 lobsters are so much scattered that it is no longer profitable to set the 

 traps in trawls. If a continuous, and rapid (^ecrease should be proved, 



