[21] HISTORY OV THE TILE-FISH. 257 



in the evening we were passing through this school of codfish, and as 

 we were sailing at the rate of G knots an hour we went through 69 miles 

 of them.' 



" ' Did you eat them ? ' inquired the reporter. 



" ' No,' said Captain Lawrence -, ' not 09 miles of 'em. We ate a few.' 



" ' And this is not ' a fish story ? " 



" ' Hardly. Three other vessels report the same facts.' 



" ' Sixty-nine miles of dead fish are some fish,' suggested the incredu- 

 lous reporter. 



'"You're right,' said the captain, 'and that's the point of the story. 

 They weren't all cod; there was a kind of fish looking like sea bass; 

 and, also, a lot of red snappers. We also found some broken ships' 

 * knees.' 



" ' How do you account for this ? ' the reporter asked of Captain Mor- 

 timer, of the Black Ball Packet Line, who was standing in Mr. Black- 

 ford's office. 



" ' Well,' said Captain Mortimer, ' I don't know that I can. If they 

 had died of disease they would have drifted off to the southward, for 

 the current known as the polar current is now running very strong. 

 It's not unlikely that the icebergs grounded off t he Bank may have made 

 the water so cold that they couldn't stand it. But cold water doesn't 

 affect codfish, does it, Mr. Blackford ? ' 



" ' No,' said the fish commissioner, ' cold water wouldn't affect them, 

 unless they were salt. I don't know what it was. I'm going to ac- 

 quaint Professor Baird with the facts. It is a matter of interest to the 

 Commissioners.' 



" J When I first reported the facts here in the city,' said Captain Law- 

 rence, 'I said there were 15 miles of them. I thought everybody would 

 think it a ' fish story ' if I said 69 miles.' " 



As will be observed, the most of those who first saw the dead fish 

 were of the opinion that they were all, or nearly all, cod, or, at least, 

 that they belonged to that family. The accounts as to the kinds seen 

 were so conflicting, and the popular names given to fish by seamen 

 differ so widely, that only a conjecture could be formed as to the 

 identity of the species to which this mortality had occurred. A writer 

 in the New York Times of March 26, 1882, alluding to this subject, 

 says: 



"In the determination of the kind of fish just found at sea, the United 

 States Commission met w ith a great deal of difficulty on account of the 

 uncertainty of the descriptions given by captains and sailors. The vul- 

 gar nomenclature of fish is of the most extraordinary kind. A Jersey 

 fisherman will call the most ordinary fish by a local name, while if the 

 same fish were caught by a Delaware or a Boston fisherman, the name 

 being changed, the exact kind of fish meant would be quite unrecogniz- 

 able. Some said these fish were shad, others bass; some declared them 

 to be red snappers." 



S. Mis. 46 17 



