REPORT OP COMMISSIONER OP PISH AND FISHERIES. 155 



SPECIAL OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS. 



The Cod (Gadits moi'rhua). 



In the last annual report an account was given of tlie efforts that 

 had been made to increase the supi)ly of cod on the southern New Eng- 

 land coast and of the success with which this experiment had been 

 attended. The evidence since obtained in regard to this matter is even 

 more gratifying, and the expediency of continuing the propagation of 

 this species upon as large a scale as possible can no longer be denied. 

 In fact, the observations which are being made from year to year upon 

 the habits of marine fishes tend to prove that they are nearly all much 

 more susceptible to human intiuences than has generally been supposed, 

 and we feel justilied in predicting for this branch of fish-culture a more 

 brilliant future than has usually been accorded to it. 



The number of cod fry planted in the Vineyard Sound region prior to 

 July 1, 1889, was about 38,000,000, to which may now be added 5,800,000 

 for the season of 1889-90, and 3(),200,000 for the season of 1890-91, mak- 

 ing a total of over 80,000,000 down to the close of the last fiscal year. 

 For the details of the hatching work reference should be made to the 

 fish-cultural report of the Woods Holl Station, but it is interesting to 

 note in this connection that the 30,200,000 embryos deiwsited in 1890-91 

 were obtained from the eggs of 587 fish, caught chiefly on Nantucket 

 Shoals, although a few were taken off Marthas Vineyard and No Mans 

 Land. The season during which ripe eggs were secured lasted from 

 November 17, 1890, to February 7, 1891, each fish yielding from 11,000 to 

 238,000 eggs at a stripping, but some of the fish were handled more than 

 once. The i^eriod of incubation ranged from 216 to 7G2 hours, according 

 to the temperature of the water, which varied from 32^* to 49o F. 



The observations of Mr. V. N. Edwards during the past two years have 

 shown not only that the young cod have continued to be abundant at 

 the proper seasons, but also that the larger fish enter the inner waters 

 inconsiderable numbers. In the autumn of 1889 cod of two sizes were 

 plentiful; the smaller, measuring 12 to 13.^ inches long, were consid- 

 ered to be yearlings, while the others, from 18 to 22 inches long, were 

 supposed to be 2-year-olds. Fish 1^ years old, captnred in the spring, 

 measured 15 inches. The 2-year-old cod wexe abundant all along the 

 Massachusetts coast south of Cape Cod, and oft" Block Island, during 

 the fall of 1889, and over 1,000 individuals of this age were secured by 

 the schooner Grace during one day's fishing. They were also taken by 

 the tautog fishermen in Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay, and 10 

 were captured in a fyke net which had been set in the Great Harbor of 

 Woods Holl for twenty years, the first time that any of this size have 

 been known to occur in these waters. 



