420 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Dot seem to lil^e cold water. "When it gets to be cold weather tliey 

 leave, and I reason lioiu this that the air makes the water cold, and 

 then they start. But they go onto the coast of Maine, and keep in the 

 cool, deep water, when, if they liked, they could soon be in warm and 

 shoal water. Why they do so is more than I know ; but there seems to 

 be difference of habit, for some stop in the deep and cool water while 

 others go into the shoal and warm water. 



15. I know nothing of their habits or laws of breeding, but I do know 

 that we rarely see any of them with spawn in them, and when so found 

 it generally is in the fall. But we have abundant evidence that they 

 do spawn in this bay, from the fact that often we take in our nets bush- 

 els of their spawn, and also during some seasons there are large quan- 

 tities of small fish about the size of sardines. They are always seen in 

 the fall. We know nothing of one or two year old fish ; they are either 

 full grown with us or small. But there are different sizes of fish, as we 

 find by our nets, for we use a mesh 3^ inches large, and sometimes we 

 catch a school that "gill" in them, although not often. We take schools 

 of fish that are large and overgrown, but we generally think it to be due 

 to the difference in their feeding grounds. 



16. Now and then there are plenty of small menhaden in Narragan- 

 sett Bay, but it is the exception instead of the ruie. I never saw any 

 young menhaden east of Cape Cod, and I have asked a man that has 

 fished constantly for menhaden east of Cape Cod for about ten years, 

 and he says he never saw any. I have seen plenty of them south of 

 Narragansett Bay. 



17. It is hard to tell when the fish leave the coast, for we can fish with 

 our purse-seines and have good fishing if it is good, warm weather, but 

 if it comes on cold, the fish vanish, and to all appearances they are 

 gone, for they do not show on the surface of the water ; but the gill- 

 nets will take them long after, and they have been so taken as late as 

 New Year's, when they are quite plenty; this shows that they are not 

 gone at that time. Who knows but what they are close by all winter? 



19. We don't know where they spend their winters, although I have 

 seen large quantities off the coast of South Carolina and North Caro- 

 lina during the winter months. 



20. I don't know the nature of their food, except we think it is a small 

 live something in the water, for they go about with their mouths open, 

 as if sifting or straining the water for food. We call it brit. It must be 

 something of great fattening properties, for they fat raj)idly when they 

 arrive on the beds of it that lie otf the coast of Maine. 



21. I know they spawn on Narragansett Bay. 



28. They are abundant some seasons in this bay, but not always. I 

 have seen millions of barrels, about the size of sardines ; and on 

 the coastof North Carolina I have seen them for miles square so plen- 

 tiful, about the size of sardines, that you could hardly move a boat 

 through them, and an oar among them would fall down about as fast as 



