Fluctuations in the past have been attributed 



to: 



1. Excessive catches or wasteful fishing by 

 new types of gear. This opinion was usually 

 advanced by operators of old types of gear in 

 support of their opposition to the introduction 

 of new methods of fishing. For example, the 

 use of pound nets and floating traps was op- 

 posed and condemned in Rhode Island and 

 Massachusetts about 1870 (Baird, 1873) and 

 purse seines in New Jersey beginning about 

 1920. Charges of destructive fishing against 

 these gears resulted in restrictive legisla- 

 tion (New Jersey Board of Fish and Game 

 Commissioners, 1936). Later, summer fisher- 

 men opposed a new winter fishery by otter 

 trawls off the Virginia Capes (Pearson, 1932; 

 Nesbit and Neville, 1935). 



2. Occasional wholesale destruction of large 

 numbers by predacious enemies, especially 

 bluefish (Baird, 1873; Bigelow and Welsh, 

 1925). 



3. Spasmodic changes in hydrographic con- 

 ditions causing unusual movements of the fish 

 and also mortalities of unusually large num- 

 bers of scup by sudden cooling of the water 

 (Baird, 1873). 



about 1845 and widely used by 1870) was 

 guilty of destroying "many of the fertile 

 (spawning) fish and preventing others from 

 depositing their eggs" (Baird, 1873). The 

 Massachusetts committee reported "no rea- 

 sonable ground for complaint" (Baird, 1873). 

 The Rhode Island committee on the other 

 hand, concluded that the complaint was well 

 founded and reported in favor of a very 

 stringent law prohibiting the further use of 

 traps and pound nets except within a limited 

 district (Baird, 1873). The decisions of both 

 these committees were based largely on the 

 testimony of the fishermen. As a result of 

 this difference in the reports of the two com- 

 missions. Federal inquiry was made in 1871- 

 72. The Federal commission recommended 

 "prohibition of use of nets from Friday night 

 until Monday morning of each week of the 

 spawning season, and after that no restriction 

 need be imposed," (Baird, 1873). As far as is 

 known, no action was taken on any of these 

 recommendations, perhaps because shortly 

 afterwards (1872) scup became very abundant 

 (Southwick, Root, and Morton, 1893), lending 

 support to those who contended that protection 

 of the species by elimination or curtailment 

 in numbers and amount of fishing of the 

 "fixed apparatus" was not necessary to in- 

 sure successful reproduction and continued 

 good catches. 



4. Annual variation in the relative success 

 or failure of reproduction (Baird, 1873; South- 

 wick, Root, and Morton, 1893; Nesbit and 

 NeviUe, 1935). 



The effects of these fluctuations in the 

 yield of scup on the livelihood of men engaged 

 in fishing, especially in the coastal waters 

 of southern New England, have been of such 

 importance as to result in special State and 

 Federal inquiries. From 1869 to 1870, the 

 States of Rhode Island and Massachusetts 

 each investigated the condition of the sea 

 fisheries along the southern coast of New 

 England (Baird, 1873). The reports of these 

 commissions, however, resulted in much con- 

 fusion because of the difference of the find- 

 ings. At the time, the principal point at issue 

 was whether or not the "fixed apparatus" 

 (pound nets and floating traps introduced 



To the present, however, opinions of those 

 interested in the fisheries continue to differ 

 on the causes of changes in yield and the 

 measures necessary to make possible the 

 best utilization of the supply. Failure to 

 reach satisfactory agreements on these con- 

 troversial problems has in the past been 

 due, in part at least, to the lack of infor- 

 mation on the real causes of changes in 

 abundance and the technical difficulty of 

 correcting wasteful and destructive prac- 

 tices. 



It was fortunate, therefore, that in 1927, 

 Bureau of Fisheries appropriations were made 

 available to begin a scientific study of the 

 shorefishes of the Middle Atiantic region for 

 the purpose of obtaining reliable information 

 as a basis for the wise conservation of the 

 principal species. The study of scup has been 



