TI1E SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 195 



Q. It extends not only to the lisli of the great lakes, but to river iish 1 — A. To salmon, 

 shad, striped bass, and alewives. 



Q. You find as the result that a much larger proportion of the eggs are turned into 

 fish than when left to natural exposures and dangers? — A. An ordinary estimate in re- 

 gard to shad is that under natural spawning 995 out of 1,000 eggs perish without pro- 

 ducing a young fish able to feed for itself, and that you get five young fish which 

 reach the stage of ability to feed for themselves ; that is, after their fins are properly 

 formed, and the fish is three-eighths of an inch in length. They have then passed the 

 ordinary perils of infancy, and are able to take care of themselves. With artificial 

 spawning, a fish culturist who could not bring 950 out of 1,000 eggs to that state would 

 be considered as ignorant of his business, except some unusual circumstance that 

 could not be controlled should come in to interfere. 



Q. Can you tell the Commission how many traps and pounds there are in the southern 

 part of New England, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, at Martha's 

 Vineyard, and all along to Cape Cod? — A. There are 22 traps on the south side of 

 Cape Cod, in the bays and basins about Chatham ; 9 in Vineyard Sound ; 30 at Buz- 

 zard's Bay ; 3 at Block Island ; 30 in Narragansett Bay. This year there have been 94 

 traps and pounds on the southern coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, exclusive 

 of Connecticut. I have not the figures for Connecticut here. This number represents 

 the traps and pounds from Narragansett Bay to the eastern end of Cape Cod. 



Q. Have they been increasing ? — A. Yes; they are very measurably greater in num- 

 ber than they were when I made my first census. 



Q. Can you state the number of men who are employed on those traps ?— A. The 

 number of men required to man the traps is 436, the traps requiring seven men each, 

 taking 301. 



Q. Your agent would know each of those traps? — A. I have the name of the owner, 

 and the catch of the greater portion of them. 



Q. Can you tell the Commission the catch of those traps and pounds ? — A. I have 

 here a table of the yield of that number of pounds in 1876. 



Q. Give the result. — A. For some of the species the figures are very accurate, and 

 for others they are estimated to some extent, but this estimate is essentially a. record 

 of the year, so far as they have reported it themselves, corrected by the personal ob- 

 servation of one at least of my men, who has taken a standard pound, and meted it 

 every day himself, and enumerated the catch and the kinds of fish. The total catcli 

 for 1876 included flounders, tautog, mackerel, Spanish mackerel, pompano, butter- 

 fish, squeteague, scup, sea-bass, striped bass, bluefish, menhadens, eels, cod, alewives, 

 and herring. The total catch for the year was 34,274,350 pounds. That is from Nar- 

 ragansett Bay to the eastern end of Cape Cod, on the south coast of Massachusetts and 

 Rhode Island only. 



Q. Not the western part of Rhode Island ? — A. It includes the whole of Narragan- 

 sett Bay. It does not include Long Island, where there are a great many pounds, or 

 the most westerly part of Rhode Island. 



Q. Are all these pounds of fish capable of being used, and are used for food ? — A. 

 There is a large catch of menhaden in that fifteen millions. 



Q. How many miles of coast-line does that catch represent ? — A. About 250 miles of 

 coast-line. 



Q. Have you made up a calculation of the ratio of the catch per mile ? — A. I have 

 the ratio of 137,097 pounds offish to the line or mile. 



Q. And to the men? — A. The ratio of the catch is 78,610 to each man. The total 

 value of the weir catch at the lowest wholesale rate is $S47,900; at the lowest retail 

 rate, $1,472,438 ; at a mean rate between the two, which perhaps more exactly rep- 

 resents the value, $1,160,168. That, however, is the catch of that region only with 

 traps and pounds; there is also a very large catch with hand-lines, gill-nets, and 

 seines. This is for but 94 weirs and traps. The aggregate catch of the eutire fishery 

 on the south coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts is 45,917,750 pounds, of the 



