EEGULATION OF THE SEA-FISHERIES BY LAW. 89 



abundant, until within the time mentioned, except the seui>, iihi)nl wliich 

 there is a tradition that it tirst became known in Bnzzard'.s liay, in 17!)3, 

 since which time it has always frequented the waters sontli of Cape 

 Cod. 



Up to about 1851, no means of takincc these fishes were commonly in 

 use, except the hand line, with a baited hook. 



All but one were caught at the bottom, upon their feeding-'^rounds, 

 with a still bait. 



The exception, the striped bass, was fished for, for the most i)art, 

 among the rocks uear the shore, by throwing and hauling an eel or 

 other bait, or sometimes in the tide-ways, and at the bottom, with 

 shrimp or dead or living fish, and in the surf with a bait floating upon 

 or under the surface of the water. 



They were all caught in lai'ge numbers throughout the entire season, 

 except the tautog, which appeared iu the spring and again in the au- 

 tumn. 



The catching of these fishes gave employment to thousands of fisher- 

 men, aud furnished a cheap and wholesome article of food to all the 

 inhabitants upon the sea-shore. 



The sui)i)ly was always fully equal to the demaiul. When, however, 

 railroads began to provide easier and quicker means of transportation, 

 when ice came to be used to preveut or retard decomi)osition, and when 

 the fishes came into more general use as one of the ingredients of fer- 

 tilizing compounds, wholesale methods of catching them, more or less 

 ingenious, were devised to su}»ply the demand thus artificially created. 

 Then trai)s, pounds, and weirs were brought into use, and have in- 

 creased in numbers and efticiency from year to year, and, as they did, 

 the hook-and-line fishermen caught fewer and fewer of fish, during a 

 shorter portion of the season, and these smaller and smaller in size, 

 until within two or three years hardly any of the fishes of the varieties 

 named could be caught by the common practice of hook-aud-line 

 fishing. 



As a consequence, men who had followed it heretofore for a livelihood 

 gave it up and became trappers themselves, and those who had occa- 

 sionally [lursued it to supply themselves and their families with food, 

 or for recreation and amusement, have been obliged to abandon it alto- 

 gether, or be content to spend weary and toilsome hours to capture the 

 few stragglers that have escaped the toils of the more crafty and ingen- 

 ious fisbermen. 



So well convinced did the people become that the multii)lication of 

 traps and pounds and the growing scarcity of fish stood to each other 

 in the relation of cause and effect, that in 1870, simultaneously in Mas- 

 sachusetts and Rhode Island, legislative investigation was demanded, 

 and, to a certain extent, obtained, with a view to such action as should 

 check the evil and prevent the much-feared destruction of these valua- 

 ble and important fishes. 



In what 1 shall have further to say on the subject, I shall confine n)y 

 remarks as to those investigations to the " Eeport of the committee on 

 fisheries, to the legislature of Massachusetts," the "Majority and mi- 

 nority reports of the committee on fisheries in Rhode Island, January 

 session, 1870," to the "Report of the joint special committee of the 

 general assembly of Rhode Island, appointed to examine into the fish- 

 eries of Nariagansett Bay," to the S[)eech of Mr. Atwood, of tlie Cape 

 district, chairman of the Massachusetts committee, in supi)ort of his re- 

 port, and to a general review of the fiicts elicited by those investiga- 

 tions, and to the reasoning upon them. 



