THE BLUE-FISH. I 85 



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 14. Dr. Holbrook is also silent on this head. 

 Mr. Genio C. Scott says the spawning beds are visited by 

 the parent in June, and consist of quiet nooks or bays. Mr. 

 R. B. Roosevelt states that very diminutive young occur in 

 immense numbers along the coast at the end of September 

 or beginning of October ("Game Fish of America," 1862, 

 1859.) Prof. Baird found the young fish at Beesley's Point, 

 N. J., in July, 1854, two or three inches in length, and more 

 compressed than the adult; but farther east, on Vineyard 

 Sound, although diligent search was conducted, beween the 

 middle of June and the 1st of October, with most efficient 

 apparatus in the way of fine-meshed nets, I met with nothing 

 excepting fish that made their appearance all at once along 

 the edge of the bay and harbor. 



According to Capt. Edwards, of "Wood's Holl, a very accu- 

 rate observer, they have no spawn in them when in Vineyard 

 Sound. This statement is corroborated by Capt. Hunckley; 

 and Capt. Hallett of Hyannis, "does not know where they 

 spawn." The only positive evidence on this subject is that 

 of Capt. Pease, who states it as the general impression about 

 Edgartown that they spawn about the last of July or the 1st 

 of August. He has seen them when he thought they were 

 spawning on the sand, having caught them a short time be- 

 fore, 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. 



While not discrediting the statement of Mr. Pease, it seems 

 a little remarkable that so few persons on the eastern coast 

 have noticed the spawning in summer of the Blue-fish; and, 

 although theremaybe exceptions to the fact, it is not impos- 

 sible that the spawning ground is in very early spring, or 

 even in winter, off New Jersey and Long Island, or farther 



