292 AMERICAN FISHES. 



tion continues, but young fish are found abundantly m the eel-grass along 

 the shore in August and September, and have been observed at various 

 points from Cape Lookout to Monomoy. There can be no question, 

 however, that there are breeding grounds near Charleston, S. C, and 

 north to Cape Cod, since the species is very local in its habits, and does, 

 not make long journeys to select spawning beds. Little is known of their 

 rate of growth, though it is probably slow. Capt. Benjamin Edwards, of 

 Woods Holl, Mass., kept thousands of small Tautog confined in a pond 

 for five years, and at the end of that time, when six years old, none 

 weighed more than two and one-half pounds. A half-pound fish which he 

 confined in a lobster-car, with plenty of room and plenty of food, 

 increased from one-half to three-quarters of a pound in six months. The 

 average weight of those sent to market does not exceed two or three 

 pounds, though individuals weighing ten, twelve, and fourteen pounds are 

 by no means unusual. The largest on record was obtained near New 

 York in July, 1876, and is preserved in the National Museum — its length 

 thirty-six and one-half inches, its weight twenty-two and one-half pounds. 

 The abundance of this species past and present has been actively dis- 

 cussed and much interesting testimony on the subject may be found in the 

 report of the United States Commissioner of fisheries. This was one of 

 the fish regarding which the claim was made that it has been almost exter- 

 minated in Rhode Island by overfishing ; upon this point, however, the 

 opinions of fishermen and experts are much at variance. In 1870, when, 

 according to general opinion, Tautog had been almost exterminated in the 

 waters of Narragansett Bay, the records of Newport fish-markets show that 

 in one day, November 2, eleven men caught about 3,000 pounds of Tau- 

 tog with hook and line, besides cod and other fish, while on the following 

 day the catch of fifteen meen was 28,000 pounds, besides codfish caught 

 to the amount of 600 pounds, being an average of over 2,600 pounds to 

 each man. These catches compare very favorably with that recorded at 

 Fir Rock Ledge, Wareham, ten years previous, when, on the 9th of 

 October, two men caught, in three hours, 271 pounds of Tautog, a catch 

 which was pronounced by local authorities the greatest ever made in those 

 waters.* Col. Lyman, Massachusetts commissioner, writing in 1S72, 

 remarked: "Great complaint is made of the scarcity of this valued 

 species north and south of Cape Cod, but especially near the mouth of 



* Barnstable Patriot, October 9, i860. 



