THE SQUETE AGUES. ii 



J 



teague, which were so plentiful that ihey could be taken by the boat-load. 

 But in 1816, when I first went into a fishing boat, they had disappeared, 

 and I did not see a single specimen for many years. Since that time, 

 however, they have commenced returning in considerable numbers." The 

 pioneer of this return came to Provincetown June 23, 1847. Capt. At- 

 wood's prediction of their abundant return has not yet been verified. 

 Their movements further south have been no less eccentric ; and this 

 species illustrates in a very forcible manner the a.xiom of the ichthyologist, 

 that the movements of the oceanic fishes are the effect of laws, as yet but 

 little understood, upon which the feeble efforts of man have no appreci- 

 able effect. Col. Theodore Lyman has written: "This fish is highly in- 

 teresting as one of those which has appeared and disappeared alternately 

 on our coast. In 1S03 it was abundant in Rhode Island, and veryplenty 

 at Provincetown as late as 1820. In 1832 it deserted Vineyard Sound (and 

 the northern part of the Cape even before that), .* * * and now 

 (1872) for five or six years it has grown abundant, apparently increasing 

 as the bluefish decreased, until this season when the weirs have taken 

 hundreds at a haul." Capt. Atwood tells me that in 1S45 he noticed 

 them in New York, when the weekly supply would not have exceeded one 

 thousand pounds, while thirty years later he found thenfi coming in by the 

 ton. Mr. David T. Church wrote in 1871: " Scup have disappeared 

 from Narragansett Bay, but Squeteague have taken their place, and where 

 ten years ago there were millions of scup, now there are almost none, but 

 millions of Squeteague. Hundreds of acres could be seen any clear day 

 between Point Judith and Providence." 



There has been a curious relation between the periodical variations in 

 the abundance of bluefish and Squeteague, the latter having been most 

 numerous when bluefish were least so, but no one fully understands its 

 cause. The habits of the two species are very similar ; their times of 

 coming and going, and probably their favorite water temperature, nearly 

 identical. They feed in the same manner and upon the same animals, 

 and the bluefish being the swiftest swimmer and the most voracious feeder, 

 its presence in large numbers possibly interferes with the food supply of 

 the Squeteague. It is not impossible that, though both species much pre- 

 fer menhaden, the bluefish may frequently vary its diet by feeding on its 

 weaker comrade. 



Some inexplicable cause had a similar influence upon the bluefish, 



8 



