188 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



25 pounds. Not unfrequently 500 or 1,000 of them are taken iu a single night in one 

 of the pounds, hut the people make no use of them and consider them valueless 

 They sell the fish weighing 25 pounds for 25 cents. It is a coarse fish and very dark 

 meat, hut still it is a food resource when other fish are not taken. These fish are found 

 in the Mediterranean, where they are very much looked after and bring very good 

 prices, they being specially salted and put up in oil. The American tunny is undis- 

 tinguishahle from the European, though efforts have been made to separate them. 



Q. The pound-fishing which has come into general use in the southern part of New 

 England, what is its effect on the supply of iish ? — A. That is a question which I 

 think will require a longer period of years than we have had for its definite deter- 

 mination. In 1871 I made my first inquiries into these pounds, and satisfied myself 

 then that they must have a positive influence upon the abundance of fish, in view of 

 the concurrent enormous destruction of bluefish. I considered the bluefish was the 

 greatest ageucy in the destruction of our food-fishes. Its relation to scup and sque- 

 teague has long been established — that when bluefish are abundant the other fish are 

 rare, and the moment bluefish diminish the other fish become enormously common. 

 The squcteague iu 18G2 was unknown as a fish east of the waters of Now Jersey ex- 

 cept in small numbers, and was not found in Martha's Vineyard or Buzzard's Bay. 

 Iu 1872, ten years subsequently, so plentiful were they that I know myself of 5,000 

 fish being taken at a single haul, averaging five pounds each fish. The bluefish then 

 began to diminish, and from that time were much less abundant than in 1850 or 1860. 

 Those pounds and the bluefish together I considered j>roduced the decrease in the 

 abundance of scup, sea bass, and tautog that has been so much complained of. I 

 urged very strongly, and I still maiutain my view, on the legislatures of Massachu- 

 setts and Rhode Island the propriety of exercising some sort of restriction upon the 

 indiscriminate use of this apparatus. I recommend that one day and two nights, 

 that is, from Saturday night, or, if possible, from Friday night till Monday morning, 

 should be established as a close time during which those fish should not be taken by 

 any of those devices, thus giving the fish a chance to get into the spawning-grounds 

 inshore, thereby securing their perpetuity. 



I was quite satisfied in my own mind that unless something of this kind was done 

 very serious results would happen. Very much to my disgust, I must admit, the next 

 year, even with all the abundance of those engines, the young scup came in in quan- 

 tities so great as to exceed anything the oldest fishermen remembered, and thousands 

 and tens of thousands of barrels of what was called dollar scup were sold. They were 

 so thick in the pounds and so mixed with the fish that the owners could scarcely pick 

 out the marketable iish, and consequently had to let large portions of the contents of 

 the pounds go away. Since then scup has beeu very much more abundant than it 

 was when I. wrote my book and report. 



Q. How do you account for this great increase ? — A. I think those were scup, be- 

 longing to further south, which took a northern trip to northern waters and estab- 

 lished themselves there. But I do urge in the most earnest manner the propriety of 

 some restriction being placed on the pounds.' I have not changed my views, although 

 the evil has not arrived as I thought it would, aud there are indications of some other 

 agency; whether it be the diminution of the bluefish which permits the scup to in- 

 crease or not I cannot say. 



Q. Is it true the bluefish is diminishing ? — A. It is not by any means so abundant as 

 it was, very much to the regret of all people who catch them, either for market or for 

 sport. 



Q. Can you remember the time wheu there was no bluefish on the American coast ? — 

 A. I cannot. I know we have the record of the fact, and I know many persons who 

 can remember it. Bluefish was absent from the American coast for sixty years, during 

 which time there was not a single bluefish to be found on the coast. 



Q. You think the pounds should be dealt with as a matter for regulation and not 

 for banishment? — A. I don't think the market would be amply supplied without 



