Nichols. — Concerning Young Bluefish 171 



The evidence, however, is clear that the Bluefish 

 spawns off our shores in early summer, and there is ma- 

 terial to show the growth of the young while with us. 



According to Dr. G. Brown Goode, ''American Fishes," 

 1888 : "The Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt records that he ob- 

 served the Bluefish fry less than an inch in length in the 

 inlet of Far Rockaway, N. Y., on the 10th of July .... 

 Dr. Yarrow does not give any facts in regard to this 

 subject, at Fort Macon, except that spawn was seen to 

 run out of a small female caught July 14th .... 

 The only positive evidence . ... is that of Capt. Pease, 

 who states it as the general impression about Edgartown 

 that they spawn about the last of July or the first of Au- 

 gust. He has seen them when he thought they were 

 spawning on the sand, having caught them a short time 

 before, full of spawn, and finding them afterward for a 

 time thin and weak. He thinks their spawning ground 

 is on the white sandy bottom to the eastward of Martha's 

 Vineyard, toward Muskeeget." 



Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, writing in the report of the New 

 York Forest, Fish and Game Commission for 1900, gives 

 a detailed statement of the sizes of young Bluefish in 

 Great South Bay in the summer of 1901. He says, "The 

 smallest individual taken in July measured 3i/s inches. 

 In the first half of September the lengths varied from 

 3% to 71/4 inches. Young Bluefish 714 inches long were 

 caught in August .... a single young bluefish 71/2 inches 

 long was seined in the foot portion of Swan River, Sep- 

 tember 9." 



It will be seen that these sizes agree very well with 

 those given above, but show a wider variation. Probably 

 the former give a fair idea of the average of the schools. 



There is also material to show that the season is ear- 

 lier further south. In the Museum collections a single 

 specimen 41/0 inches long, from Cape Sable, Florida, Feb- 

 ruary 9, 1910, and five 3 to 31/2 inches long, from Marco 

 Pass, Florida, February 15, 1910, indicate that it is five 

 months earlier in Florida. 



