only 137 million pounds, whereas in 

 1957, 168 million pounds were landed. 

 Of the 1958 total, 78 million pounds 

 were landed at Point Judith, R. I., 43 

 million pounds at New Bedford, Mass., 

 and 16 million pounds at Gloucester, 

 Mass. The greatest decrease in land- 

 ings was at Gloucester, where 37 

 million pounds were landed in 1957. 



The decrease in total landings at 

 Point Judith appears to be the result 

 of a slight decrease in availability of 

 certain species, among them the silver 

 hake, and an influx of large numbers 

 of swordfish which diverted the fleet's 

 attention from industrial fish during 

 the summer. The relative decrease in 

 abundance of silver hake in the landings 

 was general throughout New England 

 in 1958. The percentage contribution 

 of silver hake to the industrial catch 

 dropped from 23.0 percent in 1957 to 

 15.9 percent in 1958. This change in 

 relative abundance occurred in all but 

 one of the general areas listed in table 

 17 and is by far the most significant 

 change observed in these 2 years. 



SAMPLING PROCEDURE 



Since the previous report, further 

 research has been done on the validity 

 of the sannpling procedure. This re- 

 search indicated that the present 

 standard sample size of 1 bushel was 

 of sufficient size to estimate the per- 

 centage composition of major species 

 within the catch (i. e., more than 30 

 percent by number) to within 4 or 5 



percent, and that any further signifi- 

 cant increase in precision would involve 

 a sample so large as to be imprac- 

 tical. 



The areas used in reporting the data 

 are indicated in figure 2. The data pre- 

 sented for these areas do not represent 

 the ultimate detail of our interview 

 informiation; they are syntheses of 

 data from many individual fishing 

 grounds that share some degree of 

 ecological similarity. 



Figure 2. "Industrial fishery areas referred to in this report. 



