98 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



north side of tlie cape until 1847, when tliey drove away from our bay 

 nearly all other species." • 



The bones of the soup found show that that fish was here when the 

 (country was first settled. So far as we know, they have always existed 

 in the waters of Rhode Island ; and we have also the tradition that they 

 appeared in Buzzard's Bay in 1703, and no evidence that they have not 

 frequented these waters ever since. They must then have been here 

 when the blue-fish arrived in 1832. In 1847 they (the blue-fish) so atiected 

 the fishery, that that year was the last of the catch of mackerel, in which 

 Mr. Atwood was then engaged in fishing with nets. Why then did not 

 scup and tautog begin to grow scarce if the blue-fish is the cause? How 

 happens it that the blue fish which, in one year, drove all the mackerel 

 out of Cape Cod Bay, did not trouble the scup and tautog on the south 

 side of the cape for" nearly twenty years'? From 1832, when the bliie- 

 fish came, until 184S, wlien these fishes began to be very considerably 

 diminislied, the blue fish, which had appeared in such abundance as to 

 depopulate the waters of nearly all other fish, and depopulated Mr. 

 Atwood's viUage and home, made no perceptible difference to the tautog 

 and scup. Nor was any difference apparent until after the traps began 

 to be set, which was in 1844. 



The truth is, the blue-fish do not drive nor destroy the bottom fish to 

 any considerable extent, and would not at all, but that the traps catch 

 up their food and force them to attack every species that swims. The 

 fishes which Mr. Atwood was catching were mackerel, surface fish. 

 These the blue-fish would pursue, and these they could both destroy and 

 drive. 



I have no doubt the blue fish has done much to drive other species of 

 wandering fishes from one place to another. Undoubtedly they con- 

 sume and destroy large numbers of other fish ; they nuiy indeed occa- 

 sionally attack scup and tautog, and possibly consume the food which 

 is eaten by the fishes of which we are now speaking, but there is no evi- 

 dence that they do so to any considerable extent. Let us look at the 

 testimony and see when this savage, this scapegrace for the trappers, 

 this Temnodon saliator, does his work, and upon what. 



■It is not probable that he troubled the scup much in Mr. Atwood's 

 bay, since he says that only a few straggling specimens venture into the 

 colder waters north of Cape Cod ; and we do not find that he disturbed 

 them on the south side of the cape and in Narragansett Bay until they 

 had lived peaceably together in the same waters for nearly a quarter of 

 a century. 



The forty-eighth printed interrogatory of the Rhode Island commis- 

 sioners is as follows : "Please state, for the benefit of the committee, how 

 a hook-and-line fisherman is employed during the season, what fish he 

 takes at the beginning of the season, with time of commencing, and in 

 order nu^ntion the different fish as they are caught, with tire usual date 

 of arrival and disappearance." 



See also questions 4, and G8to 71. 



■In answer to these questions, the witnesses agreed that flat-fish 

 appeared the earliest, then the scup, then tautog, and after them the 

 menhaden, which were soon followed by the blue fish. It also appeared 

 that scup and tautog were not taken with hook and line until after they 

 had spawned, so that they must have spawned before the blue- fish 

 arrived ; consequently the blue-fish do not dri\e nor destroy these fish 

 until after spawning. Unfortunately, therefore, if the blue-fish drive 

 these fish to any considerable extent, which we have already shown they 

 do not, or did not prior to 1844, they come altogether too late in tlie 



