'KEPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XIX 



lu view of the facts adduced in reference to the shore-lisbes, there can 

 be no hesitation in accepting the statement that there has been an enor- 

 juous diminution in their number, although this had ah-eady occurred 

 to a considerable degree with some species by the beginning of the 

 present century. The evidence of thetishermen, however, and of others 

 familiar with the subject, as published in the present report, goes to 

 prove that the decrease has continued in an alarmingly rapid ratio dur- 

 ing the last fifteen or twenty years, or even less ; and I can state of my 

 own personal observation that localities in Vineyard Sound where 

 nine years ago an abundance of scup, tautog, sea-bass, &c,, especially 

 the former, could be caught, do not now yield one-tenth part of 

 the weight of fish, in the same time and at the same season. As the 

 decrease is most strongly marked in the case of the scup, I refer for the 

 details to the chapter on that fish, (page 228.) 



We may also refer to the testimou}' of the Ehode Islaiui committee, 

 on page 104, in reference to the increase of the cost of living on the 

 coast of that State, in consequence of the diminution of the fisheries. 

 "One very intelligent man thought it made $100 difference in the 

 cost of living to those persons living on theshore and in the small towns 

 on the bay, and, from his own experience, lie had no doubt that there are 

 one thousand persons living near the shore to whom it made this differ- 

 ence, amounting to a loss to them of $100,000 each year, that of the 

 high price of fish in Providence market not being taken into account." 

 (Page 105.) 



The condition of things referred to is, perhaps, not felt uniformly 

 over the entire coast, but in certain regions the complaint in regard to 

 it is universal ; and it will be our object to make inquiry hereafter as 

 to the real causes of the evil. 



■Many persons are in the habit of considering that the fish supply of 

 the sea is i)ractically inexhaustible; and, therefore, that a scarcity of any 

 particular location is to be referred rather to the movenjents of the fish, 

 in changing their feeding-grounds capriciously, or else in following the 

 migration, from place to place, of the food upon which they live. This 

 may be true to a certain extent, as we shall hereafter show, but it is 

 difficult to point out any locality where, near the shores in the i!^ew 

 England States, at least, under the most favorable view of the case, the 

 fish are quite as plentiful as they were some years ago; and still more 

 so where, by their overlapping the original colonists of the sea-bottom, 

 they tend to render the abundance appreciably greater than usual. 

 And, furthermore, if the scarcity of the fish be due to their going off 

 into the deep waters of the ocean, it is, of course, of v^ery little moment 

 to the fisherman that they are as abundant in the sea as ever, if they 

 do not come upon such grounds as will permit their being taken by his 

 lines or nets. 



It is by no means to be inferred from our remarks as to the scanjity 

 of fish that fewer are actually caught now than formerly at any time; 



