REGULATION OF THE SEA-FISHERIES BY LAW. 95 



upon the spawn of liaddock when the hand-line oidy was in use. 

 Whether the iiat-tish did feed upon tlie si)awn of liaddock we do not 

 know as a matter of fact; but if they did, we shall see with what pro- 

 bable effect when we come to consider Mr. Atwood's remarks on the 

 fecundity of fishes. 



Reasoning from analogy is, after all, only showing a proba1)ility, and 

 cannot be regarded as a very safe method from one chiss of fishes to 

 another. 



^Ir. Atwood admits, with respect to the halibut, that they seem to be 

 decreasing on all the fishing.-groands, and leaves the senators, who of 

 course are not expected to know much about it, to decade whether or 

 not over-fishing is the cause of it. Whether the senators ever have de- 

 cided I do not know, but the fair inference would be, in the absence of 

 any ex[)lanation of the matter, that the fishery of them, prosecuted as 

 extensively as Mr. Atwood says it is, had something to do Avith it. 



Mr. Atwood says : " It a[)peared in evidence before The committee 

 that the fish known as the squeteague is increasing in the vicinity of 

 Buzzard's Bay, and along the south shore of Cape Cod. S^^ome sixty 

 years since it was vastly abundant in the southern part of Massachu- 

 setts Bay, and though absent for so man}' years, it seems to be returning 

 to its former haunts." 



From snch knowledge as we have of its habits, it seems to be one of 

 the wandering fishes, and likely, therefore, to appear or disappear at any 

 time. 



One other f?sh concludes the list referred to by Mr. Atwood, a species 

 of iiat-tish, the Flutcssa oh!oti</(i. 



What he says of the blue fish will be passed here, as it comes more 

 properly under another head of my subject. 



This species, (the fiat-fish,) he says, was exceedingly abundant along 

 our shores before the blue-fish came. " It is a bottom fish, and does not 

 come so directly in contact w ith the blue-fish as top-water swimmers ; 

 still, it has almost wholly disappeared, owing to the bine-fish having de- 

 stroyed its favorite bait, which is the common s<piid." 



Here, again, the scarcity of the fish is aduutted, and here, again, the 

 question of the cause is begged. Mr. Atwood, it is true, states it as a fact 

 that the squid is its favorite bait, and that the blue-fish has destroyed 

 the squid. Could he think of liothiug else which destroyed its " favor- 

 ite bait," after all the testimony before the committee showing the vast 

 quantity of squid taken in the pounds and traps ? 



This, then, is all there is going to prove that the decrease of the spe- 

 cies of fishes now under consideration is absence and not scarcity. We 

 may now consider the evidence as all in, for if there had been any more, 

 ]Mr. Atwood, with his declared ]^urpose of "trying to show the danger 

 of exterminating the race of iish, if there is any," would have stated it. 

 From it, what are we fairly to conclude ! 



First. That a certain class of fishes, called wandering fish, appear iu 

 and disai)pear from certain localities without our being able always to 

 assign the cause ; that their decrease is, or may be, absence, not scarcity. 



Second. That a certain other class of fishes, called bottom fish, includ- 

 ing the scup, tautog, sea-bass, and striped bass, are domestic in their 

 character, coming annually into the same waters to breed and dwell, 

 migratory, and not wandering, iu their habits, concerning which, if they 

 decrease, it must be scarcity, not absence. 



2. The decrease of these species of fish is accounted for by reason of 

 the scarcity of food. 



