FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 43 



sporting upon the surface of the ocean, and scarce one allow 

 itself to be taken, while again, the success of a few days will 

 retrieve the disappointments of nearly a season. 



Thus a fisherman informs me, that the last season, (1837) 

 having been at the bay of Chaleur, and taken but few fish, 

 the vessel to which he belonged, was returning home, when, 

 off Cape Cod, the fish were so numerous and voracious, that the 

 crew, consisting of ten men. captured in two hours, nearly 

 thirty barrels of them. At this time about two hundred smacks 

 were together, and they were all equally successful, some of 

 them taking even forty barrels of fish. 



After being carefully inspected, these fish find a ready mar- 

 ket in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and New Orleans, 

 and from this last port they are sent over the entire western 

 country. Those of inferior quality are shipped to the West 

 India islands. 



I have not been able to learn with accuracy the number of 

 vessels engaged exclusively in this fishery ; in many towns, 

 the same vessels are used at different seasons of the year for 

 the cod as well as the mackerel fishery. I have ascertained, 

 however, that there were two hundred and two vessels employed 

 in this fishery, in 1836, in the county of Barnstable, and that 

 of this number, ninety-eight belonged to Provincetown, which 

 were valued at $147,000. 



Several of our most intelligent fishermen inform me, that the 

 difficulty of taking mackerel is yearly' increasing, from the 

 barbarous custom prevailing of gaffing them, of collecting 

 them around vessels by means of throwing out bait, and then 

 suddenly drawing up an instrument armed with numerous 

 sharp iron points, by which many are captured, and greater 

 numbers are cruelly maimed without being taken. 



By the " Statistical Tables," drawn up by the Secretary of 

 State, from the reports of the assessors of the different towns 

 upon the various branches of industry, it appears, that the 

 number of barrels of mackerel taken in the year 1837, with 

 their prices, were as follows : — Whole number of bbls. 234,059 ; 

 value, $1,639,042. Taken by the following Counties: — 



