8 INLAND FISHERIES. 



haden, has as much influence upon their movements as water tem- 

 perature. 



It is certain that few blue-fish are found on our Middle and Southern 

 coast when the menhaden are absent ; on the other hand, the blue-fish 

 do not venture in great numbers into the Gulf of Main at the time 

 when menhaden are schooling and are at their greatest abundance. 

 Their favorite summer haunts are in the partially protected waters of 

 the Middle States, from Ma}^ to October, with an average temperature 

 of 60° to 7d°. The menhaden, or certain schools of them, affect a 

 cooler climate and thrive in the waters of Western and Central Maine 

 in the months when the harbor temperatures are little above 50° and 

 55°, and that of the ocean considerably lower." 



Professor Baird has published in the First Report of the United 

 States Fish Commission an exhaustive account of the habits of the 

 blue-fish which will be quoted from freely in this chapter. 



The presence of quotation marks will be sufficient to indicate the 

 source of the paragraphs taken from his essay, without further refer- 

 ence to his name. 



" Movements and Migrations. — The blue-fish is preeminently a 

 pelagic or wandering fish, and like many others, especially of the 

 scrombridce, is apparently capricious in its movements, varying in 

 numbers at particular localities with the year, and sometimes disap- 

 pearing from certain regions for a large fraction of a century, again to 

 return as before. The cause of this varia^tion it is impossible to 

 explain, being due in some instances, probably, to the disappearance 

 of its favorite food in consequence of its own voracity, or for other 

 undetermined reasons. 



" They occur during the summer throughout the entire range indi- 

 cated for the United States, but are much larger in size and in greater 

 abundance from the coast of New Jersey northward. From New Jer- 

 sey southward, in the season mentioned, with the exception of an 

 occasional wandering school, they are generally only about eight to 

 twelve inches in length, representing, therefore, in all probability, in- 

 dividuals of the second year's growth. 



