A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 699 



fied now. But they also state that the fishes soon became more shy 

 and scarce, so that they had to go farther away at sea to catch them. 



The fishes have contributed largely to the food of the Berrnudians, 

 ever since the first settlement, and thei-efore it is not strange that 

 they have decreased both in number and size. But it is difficult to 

 determine definitely how much they have decreased, for accurate 

 records and statistics are lacking. Moreover, it is possible that 

 natural physical causes, as in the instance given above (ch. 19), may 

 have, in other cases, caused the death of multitudes of fishes. How- 

 ever, it has long been recognized in Bermuda that legal restrictions 

 were necessary to prevent the wanton destruction of the fishes. 



Silvanus Jourdan, in 1610, gave the following account of the 

 fishes : 



" Sir George Summers, a man inured to extremities (and knowing 

 what thereunto belonged) was in this service neither idle nor back- 

 warde, but presently by his careful industry went, and found out 

 sufficient of many kind of fishes, and so plentifull thereof, that in 

 half an houre he tooke so many fishes with hookes, as did suffice the 

 whole company one day. And fish is there so abundant, that if a man 

 steppe into the water, they will come round about him : so that men 

 were faine to get out for feare of byting. These fishes are very fat 

 and sweete, and of that proportion and bignesse that three of them 

 will conveniently lade two men: those we call Rockfish.* Besides 

 there are such store of mulletsf that with a seane might be taken at 

 one draught one thousand at the least, and infinite store of Pilchards, 

 with divers kinds of great fishes, the names of them unknown to me: 

 of tray fishes very great ones, and so great store, as that there hath 

 been taken in one night with making lights, even sufficient to feed 

 the whole company [150 persons] a day." 



The following is an extract from the account of Wm. Strachy, 1610: 



"The shoares and Bayes round about, when wee landed first 

 afforded great store of fish, and that of divers kindes, and good, but 



* The rock fishes (Mycteroperca bonaei and other species, see plate xcv, figs. 

 3, 4) still grow to large size, those taken off the outer reefs sometimes weighing 

 80 to 100 pounds, but such large specimens are not now found in shallow water. 

 Very likely the Hamlet Grouper (plate xcv, fig. 2), may also have been here 

 included as a Rockfish, though Hughes, in 1614, distinguished between groupers 

 and rockfishes. This fish has always been one of the commonest of the large 

 Bermuda market fishes, often weighing 20 to 30 pounds, but it may have been 

 still larger and much more abundant at first. 



f White Mullets (Mugil Braziliensis), fig. 53, are still found here, but not in 

 great abundance. Pilchards are still abundant. 



