Fish and Fishermen 223 



FOOD FISH 



The great bulk of food fish comes from salt water. There 

 are to be sure fresh-water food fisheries, but their total pro- 

 duction is comparatively small. Vast stores of nourishment 

 exist in the ocean which are available to us only in the form 

 of fish and which we have never learned to utilize in any 

 other way, as we have learned to utilize the nutritional re- 

 sources of the soil through agriculture. We are completely 

 dependent upon fish to go out and collect this nourishment 

 and concentrate it in bodies large enough for us to capture 

 and consume. If there were no fish, it would be* lost to us. 

 Even with their help, there is much loss, for many forms of 

 fish life cannot be reached, others are inedible, and still 

 others, while edible, are not considered marketable. This is 

 especially true in the United States, where fish which would 

 be eaten in other parts of the world are discarded when taken 

 in the nets. The little puffer, or blow-fish, which swells up 

 like a balloon when disturbed, belongs to a group many of 

 whose members are poisonous. Until recently it was tossed 

 out when found in the nets. Now it has been discovered that 

 it is a great delicacy, and it is much in demand in the markets 

 of New York and Boston. 



Once in a while a hitherto unheard of species is revealed 

 by nature and offered for man's edification. The tilefish, 

 spectacularly hued in brilliant reds* and golds and reaching 

 a weight as high as fifty pounds, had never been seen by 

 human eyes until encountered in 1879 by a fisherman at a 

 depth of a hundred fathoms on a previously unexplored bank 

 south of Nantucket. Brought into the Boston market, it 

 proved highly edible and marketable. Found in abundance 

 near the coast, it was soon being caught in large numbers, to 

 the profit of fishermen, fish markets, and consumers. Three 

 years later, with all the drama of a major catastrophe, a 



