XL REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



exercise the supervision required to enforce the partial closure, or be- 

 fore whom comphunts couhl be entered and the penalty exacted. 



XI. Any marked increase in tlie number of the shore fishes, resulting 

 from their protection duriug the spawuing-season, will probably tend to 

 restore the blue-fish to their original numbers. 



XII. As there is reason to believe that scup, and to a less degree other 

 shore fishes, as well as blue-fish, have several times disappeared at inter- 

 vals to a greater or less extent, within the historic period of New England, 

 we cannot be certain tliat the use of traps and pounds within the last ten 

 years bas actually produced the scarcity complained of. The fact, how- 

 ever, thjit these engines do destroy the spawning fish in so great numbers 

 renders it very probable that they exercise a decided influence. No 

 vested interest or right will suffer by the experiment of regulating the 

 period of their use, as we have attempted to show that a better price will 

 be obtained from a smaller number of fish, by preventing the glutting 

 of the market, and the consequent waste of so perishable an article as 

 fresh fish. 



XIII. A feeling of bitterness entertained by the line-fishermen and 

 the general public against traps and i)Ounds, and those who own and 

 profit by them, will in a measure be allayed if the experiment of regu- 

 lation and restriction be tried, at least for a few years. 



COXCLUSIOX. 



In preparing the present report, my object has been to consider the 

 subject of the Xew England shore-fisheries in a strictly dispassionate 

 manner, not taking side witii any of the different parties on the ques- 

 tion as a special advocate, and attempting to draw such general conclu- 

 sions only as the facts seemed to warrant. With the view, however, of 

 enabling any one interested to review the ground for himself, I have 

 given in detail the testimony (principally phonographic) collected dur- 

 ing the inquiry in which I have been engaged, and added the special 

 arguments of representative men on the opposing sides, prepared and 

 furnished at my request, or else reprinted from ofticial sources. To 

 these I refer for the more local details and considerations of the subject, 

 and especially in regard to the movements of scup in the Rhode Island 

 waters. 



As the entire questions at issue are most nearlj- related to the scup 

 and the blue fish, I have given on pages 228 and 235 respectively as com- 

 plete an account of their habits and peculiarities as the material at my 

 command will allow. 



For a detailed account of the principal methods in use for capturing 

 fish in the United States by lines, nets, or otherwise, I refer to the 

 article in the appendix. The subject is by no uieans exhausted, and I hope 

 to refer to it again, and to include some important forms of such appa- 

 ratus used in other countries and esj)ecially applicable to our own, to- 



