[9] HISTOEY OF THE TILE-FISH. 245 



thej" remain during the winter in the region where they have been found 

 in the summer cannot be said. The fact that they were seen floating 

 upon tJie surface, dead or dying, early in March, 1882, would indicate, at 

 least, that they are on the ground in the latter i^art of the winter, 

 and as they have been caught on trawls as late as the 13th of Septem- 

 ber, it is probable that they might remain some weeks longer, if not all 

 the year.* 



In regard to other peculiarities. Captain Kirby says that these fish 

 when hauled from the water, do not flap their tails as the cod do under 

 similar circumstances, but seem to be paralyzed. Even when being- 

 unhooked they do not make any muscular effort. Thiy is so entirely 

 different from the account given by Captain Dempsey, who caught the 

 Tile-fish on hand-lines, that I feel compelled to notice it, but must ascribe 

 the conflicting statements .not to any lack of attention on the part of 

 these observers, but to the fact that the movements of the same kind of 

 fish taken on hand-lines often differ radically from those caught on trawls, 

 since on the latter ai^paratus they are supposed to exhaust themselves 

 in their continued struggles to escape, so that they frequently drown 

 before the gear is hauled. This is especially noticeable in catching the 

 halibut. One of these on a hand-line will give the strongest fisherman 

 all he can do to haul the gamey fish to the surface, and it almost always 

 happens that the line must be veered out several times or the gear 

 would be torn in two by the active and powerful fish. But caught on 

 a trawl the halibut rarely shows much fight, except in very shoal water, 

 and not unfrequently a doryman will be pulling at once from fifteen to 

 forty of these fish, either one of which, if hooked on a hand-line, would 

 give him all he could do to manage it, and bring it successfully along 

 side. 



Abundance. — Whatever may be the numerical strength of the Tile- 

 fish at the present time, it is beyond question that this species occurred 

 in vast numbers in the waters bordering the Gulf Stream — between Hat- 

 teras and Nantucket — previous to the season of 1882, though compara- 

 tively little was known in regard to their actual abundance, or the ex- 

 tent of the area where they could be taken. It is true that Captain 

 Kirby had found them so numerous that large catches might have been 

 made on trawls; Captain Dempsey caught them "pair and iiair"on 

 hand-lines, and the Fish Commission, during its investigations off the 

 Southern New England coast, had taken more or less of them on sev- 



* This refers to the habits of the Tile-fish previous to the great mortality in the 

 spring of 1882. Since thattime the investigations made by the Fish Commission steam- 

 ers Fish Hawk and Albatross and a special cruise made in the smack Josie Reeves, for 

 the purpose of finding Lopholatilus, all of which failed to secure a single individual of 

 this species, it seems probable that the survivors, if there were any, have abandoned 

 the locality where they had been previously so abundant. Speculations, therefore, 

 as to their movements, the time they remained on certain grounds, &,c., can only ap- 

 ply to that period when they were known to be plentiful in the spring and summer, 

 at least, off the coast of New England. 



