286 bulletIn of the united states fish commission. 



also be desirable to have oue or two young men, with some kuowledge 

 of natural history, to assist in the work of collecting and in keeping 

 records of. temperature, &c. With such an outfit work should be done 

 entirely in the interests of the fishing industries, gathering information 

 as to how they can best be protected and improved, &c. 



I think that all intelligent persons who have followed closely the his- 

 tory of the fishing industries of the Gulf will agree with me that in 

 almost every instance where a fishery has been pushed with any sort of 

 vigor in a certain locality for several years the natural supply has been 

 nearly exhausted. As instances of this I will mention tbe bay seine- 

 fisheries of Galveston, Mobile, Pensacola, Choctawhatehee, Saint An- 

 drew's, and Appalachicola Bays, and of the coast adjacent to Cedar 

 Keys ; the oyster fisheries of Mobile and Pensacola Bays and at several 

 other points; the sponge and turtle fisheries about Cedar Keys and 

 Key West ; and also the red-snapper and grouper fisheries. All of 

 these, by comparatively small demands upon them, have been quickly 

 and surely reduced to less profitable and reliable conditions. 



The shore bottom-fisb, such as spotted trout, sheepshead, channel bass, 

 mullet, and the large variety of smaller so-called " grass fish," have be- 

 come so scarce along the ^Northern Gulf coas; that they appear in small 

 quantities in market only duriuga few weeksin the fall and spring, while 

 but a few years ago they were abundant all winter, when there was an 

 opportunity to send them totheinterior. The grouper fishermen of Key 

 West now have to go as far north as Cedar Keys to make a catch, and 

 even then are twice as long on a trip as formerly. The Pensacola snap 

 per fishermen are now obliged to sail 200 miles, and sometimes more, to 

 the southeast to find any considerable quantity of fish, thus making the 

 cost of the fish about one- third more than it was five years ago. 



Most of the old fishing-grounds, which were large in extent and nu- 

 merous, are nearly barren ; but there are good red-snapper grounds south 

 of the point now being fished over and reaching as far as Dry Tortugas. 

 It is not practicable to extend the present voyages from Pensacola, and 

 the product cannot reasonably be placed in the Western markets from 

 any railroad connection south of Pensacola. As a consequence of the 

 failure of these fisheries, at a time when the severe weather and ice 

 prevents fishing on the Great Lakes and Western streams, the mar 

 kets of a large part of the country that are beyond convenient reach of 

 the Eastern Atlantic ports are but scantily supplied, and there is great 

 clamoring for fish. 



The migratory fishes, such as the pompano, bluefish, and Spanish 

 mackerel, seem to be as abundant as formerly. They fluctuate in abun- 

 dance, being rather scarce for a year or two and then returning even 

 in larger quantities than ever. The present season has brought with it 

 a larger run of Spanish mackerel than I have witnessed in nine years' 

 experience. But these fishes generally come with the warm weather, 

 when it has become impossible to send them in large quantities to the 



