contingents migrate in late autumn to winter off Virginia and North Carolina, 

 The folloT^dng spring some of the New Jersey contingent, and perhaps a few of 

 the Southern, migrate to New Jersey, but most of both contingents appear in 

 the inshore waters south of Delaware Bay. Most of the Southern contingent 

 probably remains there all summer. Most of the New Jersey contingent reaches 

 southern New Jersey in the middle of August, and part of it reaches no^'thern 

 New Jersey and the western part of Long Island (Fire Island) in early Septem- 

 ber, The New York contingent migrates directly from the winter grounds to 

 eastern Long Island, N. Y., where it remains the rest of the summer. 



In subsequent periods these movements are repeated, save that a lai'ger 

 proportion of the IV-group and older fish of the New Jersey contingent migrate 

 to northern New Jersey and to Fire Island in midsummer, few appearing in 

 southern New Jersey. 



Tests of the Hypothesis 



Tagging Experiments . — The resiiLts of tagging experiments designed to 

 test, and where appropriate, to modify this hypothesis, are presented in 

 Tables 21 to 25. The results of two of them are illustrated in Figures ^ 

 -md 10. 



In all of these experiments, celluloid belly tags were used. Since 

 these are not found until the fish are cleaned, many were returned by retail 

 dealers or consumers, frequently from inland communities. In some instancies, 

 nothing further could be learned. In other instances, it was possible, by 

 correspondence, to trace the shipment to the port of landing nr even to the 

 actual point of recapture. 



Even those reoorts giving only the locality where the tag was found 

 are of considerable significance. For most commercially cau-,ht fish are 

 consumed in fairly well-defined market areas near the ports of landing. 

 Thus probably most or all of the tagged fish reported by retailers or con- 

 sumers in Virginic., Mar^Aland, the District of Columbia and North Carolina 

 were caught south of Delaware Bay, while laost of those reported from New 

 York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware were caught in or north of 

 Delaware Bay, 



Within the general southern market area, it is more difficult to 

 allocate the less definite reports between North Carolina and Virginia. 

 The great majority of fish traced back to shipments by coastal whole- 

 salers in North Carolina may safely be assuraed to have been caught in North 

 Carol3.na waters. But it cannot safely be assumed that shipments from Vir- 

 ginia coastal wholesalers consist wholly of fish caught locally. During 

 the years when these experiments were carried out, a considerable part of 

 the North Carolina catch was distributed through Virginia dealers. There 

 was also considerable overlapping of the market areas served by North 



53 



