648 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



sea-bottom of the southern coast of New England, the United State,-; 

 Fish Commission steamer Fish Hatch took tile fish on several occasions 

 at depths of from 70 to 134 fathoms. The indications of the apparent 

 abundance of a new and edible fish of large size made Professor Baird 

 desirous of obtaining fuller knowledge of its habits and habitat, in the 

 hope that it might readily be taken in large numbers and prove an im- 

 portant addition to the list of food fishes Unfortunately the fish com- 

 mission had not yet built the schooner Grampus, so, having no vessel 

 especially adapted for fishery research and prepared to encounter all 

 weather, it was necessary to charter a fishing smack for the work. 

 Unfortunately, too, bad or threatening weather seemed to have been 

 chartered with the smack, and only a brief and unsatisfactory trial 

 could be made on the tile fish-ground, so that research was of necessity 

 postponed until 1882. In the months of March and April, 1882, ves- 

 sels arriving at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston reported having 

 passed large numbers of dead or dying fish scattered over an area of 

 many miles, and from descriptions and the occasional specimens brought 

 in, it was evident that the great majority of these were tile fish. Nat- 

 urally these fish were not evenly distributed over all the area in which 

 they were seen, some observers reporting them as scattering, and others 

 as at times so numerous that there would be as many as fifty on the 



Map 7.— Showing destruction of tile fish. From a map prepared by Capt. J. W. Collins. 



space of a rod square. As one account after another came in it became 

 apparent that a vast destruction offish had taken place, for vessels re- 

 ported having sailed for 40, 50, and 00 miles through floating fish ; and 

 in one case the schooner Navarino plowed for no less than 150 miles 

 through waters dotted as far as the eye could reach with dying fishes. 

 From careful computations made by Capt. J. W. Collins, it seems that 

 an area of from 5,000 to 7,500 square statute miles were so thickly cov- 

 ered with dead or dying fish that their numbers must have exceeded the 

 enormous number of one billion. As there were no signs of any dis- 

 ease, and no parasites found on the fish brought in for examination, 

 their death could not have been brought about by either of these causes ; 



