426 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



seiners have appeared and the fish have been driven farther and farther 

 from the shoal water near shore, and during the latter part of the season 

 of 1884 it was almost impossible to find a bluefish nearer shore than the 

 Horseshoe — about 10 miles from shore. We understand that at least 

 forty gangs of bluefish seiners are to tit out from Proviucetowu the 

 coming season and as many more from other towns, and we feel that if 

 seining is continued to be allowed on the shoal water the fish will soon 

 be driven from their usual feeding-grounds, and no one, unless equipped 

 with expensive gear, will be able to take them. 



(2) The abolition of seining will be a great help to several hundreds of 

 poor men on the south side of Cape Cod who depend almost entirely on 

 what they make during the fishing season to support themselves and 

 their families. None of them can get enough ahead to purchase sweep 

 seines to compete with rich firms. This may appear a selfish reason, 

 !>ut in the little village of Osterville my firm paid to the fishermen 

 $3,100 for bluefish caught by hook and line during the season between 

 May 25, 1884, and September 1, 1884, and it was all paid to poor men ; 

 the ones who had any capital shipped their own catch. Of course if 

 large lots of bluetish were taken in nets it would lower the price to the 

 consumer, but 1 think the " charity " better bestowed on the poor fisher- 

 men than on the proprietors of summer hotels and beach resorts, to 

 whom fully one-half of the bluefish shipped to this market are sold. 



Boston, Mass., February 12, 1885. 



144.-IIMTRODUCTION OF CLAITIS INTO DELAWARE BAT. 



By €. R. MOORE. 



[From letters to Prof. S. F. Baud.] 



Originally there were no clams in the Delaware Bay. Thomas Beesley. 

 at Beesley's Point, N. J., was my informant, and it must be about thirty 

 years since he told me. He said that many years ago the early settlers 

 on the bay side of New Jersey, finding no clams there, combined and 

 purchased 50,000 on the sea side and carted them over to the bay and 

 laid them out fronting their farms on the bay. They have ever since 

 had enough for their own use. It is the quahog. Thomas Beesley was 

 so reliable and so careful in stating everything that I placed implicit 

 reliance on anything that he told me. If I had brought this matter to 

 your notice ten or fifteen years ago, I eould probably have got all the 

 information needed, but the old people that I used to know all through 

 Cape May County are dead. I believe that the soft clam, or maninose, 

 as it is called here, is found in only one spot on the sea side, while it is 

 plentiful on the bay side. In New Jersey they are abundant on the sea 

 side. 



Bird's Nest, Northampton County, V a., January 2, 1885. 



