108 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Capt. David Kemps, of Yellow Blufifs, Fla., writes that about the year 

 1870 the menhaden in the Saint John's Eiver died in large numbers and 

 were washed ashore upon the banks. 



The Newport (R. I.) Daily News of June 13, 1870, states: " Millions 

 of fish, principally menhaden, scup, and young shad, have been driven 

 on to the New Jersey and Long Island shores the past week. Coves, 

 rivers, flats, inlets, and ditches have been so full that farmers have gath- 

 ered them up by the common pitchforks and shovels, carrying off thou- 

 sands of cart-loads to manure the land. It is supposed that these schools 

 of small fry were driven inshore by the bluefish." 



Mr. Phillips has known them driven by the bluefish up the great 

 rivers of Maine until they died and were washed ashore by thousands. 



Captain Spindel on the ravages of the bluefish. 



147. Oapt. Isaiah Spindel, manager of a fish-pound at the eastern ex- 

 tremity of Buzzard's Bay, states: "I do not think pound fishing is a 

 quarter as bad as bluefish for destroying fish. A bluefish will destroy 

 a thousand fish in a day. When they get into a school of menhaden 

 you can see a stream of blood as far as you can see. They go into tbem 

 and they will destroy the whole school before they let them go. I 

 think menhaden are more scarce than they used to be. They put up 

 the guano factory here (at Wood's Holl) on account of menhaden being 

 so plenty then. Twenty-five or thirty years ago there were no bluefish, 

 and menhaden were plenty. Only once in a while were there any blue- 

 fish there. Finally the bluefish got so plenty they drove all the men- 

 haden out of the bay. There are plenty of menhaden up in the heads 

 of the harbors ; some bluefish will go up and drive them up as far as 

 they can, but bluefish don't like to go up into fresh water. Squeteague 

 will swallow menhaden whole. I have seen bluefish and squeteague 

 throw the food out of their stomachs when caught. I think the blue- 

 fish fill their stomachs and then empty them just for the fun of the thing, 

 so as to catch more fish. I have seen them go into a school of menha- 

 den and catch some and throw them up again, and then go in again. I 

 could not swear they throw the stuff up, but I am positive that it is so. 

 I have seen the fish all chewed up thrown out in the water. They often 

 bite and swallow a part and leave the rest." * 



Professor Baird on the destructiveness of the bluefish. 



148. Professor Baird, in his well-known and often-quoted estimates of 

 the amount of food annually consumed by the bluefish, t states that prob- 

 ably ten thousand millions of fish, or twenty -five hundred millions of 



* Testimony in regard to the present condition of the fisheries, taken in 1871. <Re- 

 port of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, l5*71-'72, pp. 68-70. 



t Natural History of Important Food-Fishes of the south shore of New England. 

 II. — The Bluefish {Pomatomua aaltatrix, (Linn.) Gill. Report of United States Commia- 

 Bioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-'2, p. 241-'2. 



