6 REPORT OP COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



often in early Ma}', in large schools, and remain with us more or less 

 all summer in diminished numbers, or so scattered as to appear greatly 

 diminished in numbers. The habits of these fish are quite different. 

 Of edible fish the scup are decidedly the most numerous, and, ex- 

 cepting the herring, the first to come. When they arrive on the coast 

 they are in large schools and swim near the surface, but later on they 

 scatter throughout the waters and become a bottom fish. This was 

 true of them in former years, when they remained throughout the sea- 

 son in large numbers and rarely failed to make good fishing with hook 

 and line. The earliest settlers found them abundant, but from some 

 cause they left our waters and reappeared in 1793, first in small num- 

 bers, but increasing from year to year until they became the most 

 numerous of all our edible fish. They seem to have grown in disfavor 

 as they increased in numbers, until their low value caused them to be 

 used as a fertilizer, but a widened market has served to restore these 

 once despised fish to their deserved place among edible fish. From 

 their reappearance in 1793 they have been more or less plenty in our 

 waters every year. The very young fry seen here indicate that they 

 spawned in our waters. 



A few years ago the phenomenal appearance of the young of these 

 fish, about two inches long, from some unknown source baffled all cal- 

 culation in regard to them. The past season has been a peculiar one ; 

 large schools of them came on our coast, in as large if not larger num- 

 bers than ever before, but very few came into the bay, and fishing for 

 them has been very poor during the season. It is also observed that 

 last year (1889) the fish came in shore as in former years, while in the 

 two or three preceding years they were taken much more successfully 

 in the off shore traps. 



We furnish a statement of the shipment of fish by the New York 

 steamers for the last four years, and as the great bulk of the fish so 

 shipped were scup, some estimate of the comparative catch can be 

 made. We also have the statement kindly furnished us by the Messrs. 

 J. Church & Co., which shows their catch to be in these four years as 

 follows : 



