THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 77 



stated, that life iu the sea is a perpetual contest, and that the problem 

 of the survival of the fittest is there worked out to its extremest con- 

 clusion. As already shown, no form, however powerful, is free from 

 danger of attack, the giant whale or the enormous kraken being equally 

 liable. Of course many of these species when in fullest vigor can pro- 

 tect themselves by superior fleetness or strength, but with increasing 

 years and infirmities they too must succumb. In this we see the wise 

 provision of nature in securing the perfection of animal existence by 

 providing for the reduction in the excessive abundance of certain forms 

 of animal life and in the removal from the sea of such as are not pos- 

 sessed of the highest bodily vigor. 



Much outcry is made not unfrequently as to the wastefulness of dif- 

 ferent modes of fishing, and legislation is invoked to protect fish, on the 

 ground that the stock will become reduced and the business of the fish- 

 ermen destroyed. When, however, we fully appreciate the enormous 

 fecundity of marine animals and the immense mass of life that exists 

 in the sea, we can readily understand that the destructiveness of what 

 we are inclined to protect as food-fishes constitutes but a small fraction 

 of the whole. Several calculations have been made by various persons 

 in this regard. Thus, Professor Huxley, in considering the question of 

 the destruction by the herring and cod fisheries on the British coast, 

 calculated that the cod and ling alone actually caught in British waters 

 would, if left undisturbed, have destroyed many more herring than the 

 entire catch by the fishermen, who numbered 15,000 in 1872. Nearly a 

 million barrels were cured, to say nothing of the vast numbers used fresh 

 and for other purposes. 



In the first volume of the Reports of the United States Fish Commis- 

 siou, I endeavor to estimate the amount of food devoured by a single 

 species, the bluefish, which occurs in such overwhelming numbers on 

 our coast. Here, taking 1,000,000 fish as the annual consuinptiou in 

 the New York market, and assuming the total number of these fish on 

 our coast to be 1,000,000,000, of 5 pounds each, which may be regarded 

 as an exceedingly moderate calculation, we may consider the amount 

 of other fish that this body of marine wolves will consume. Allowing 

 ten fish per day, which is a moderate estimate, the total destruction 

 daily would be 10,000,000,000, which in the one hundred and twenty 

 days of their abode on the eastern coast of the United States would 

 give 1,200,000,000,000 of fish taken in this part of the season alone. It 

 is not at all an extravagant presumption that each bluefish consumes 

 half its own weight of food per diem ; and we should therefore have 

 a total destruction of 2,500,000,000 pounds daily, or 300,000,000,000 

 pounds in the year. The food of the bluefish consists of menhaden, 

 mackerel, herring, scup, and other species. 



It will also be remembered that whiie the bluefish prey upon other 

 fishes of proportionate size, for every one weighing 5 pounds we may es- 

 timate at least a hundred of a smaller size. These are equally voraci- 



