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No. 4.] THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 135 



would, if unchecked by legislation, kill all Massachusetts game in 

 a few years, has found even the apparently inexhaustible fertility 

 of the ocean unable to resist the assaults of netting." (From the 

 "Boston Herald.") 



The Extinctiox of Fish. 



It will be noticed in the first paragraph tliat the memorial 

 speaks of the wonderful fertility of fish, while in the last 

 paragraph it compares the extermination of fish to the 

 extermination of the buflalo and the whale, overlookino- 

 the fact that there is really no comparison between the 

 two. The bufialo, the whale and the seal belong to the 

 family of mammals, which reproduces itself, like the cow, 

 once a year ; Avhile the fecundity of fish is beyond com- 

 prehension. 



The cod's roe, for example, has been occasionally known 

 to be half the o-ross weis-ht of the fish itself: it is even stated 

 that a female cod has been caught with upwards of 8,000,000 

 eggs. Aljout this statement there is probably a certain pro- 

 portion of guesswork ; it is at least a little fishy. The roe 

 of a sturgeon, how^ever, when partially dried, will yield sev- 

 eral hundred pounds of caviar. 



According to Colonel McDonald, our present Fish Com- 

 missioner, the menhaden, although not much larger than the 

 herring, is said to have five times as many eggs. "The 

 herring has about 35,000 ; and a menhaden taken in Narra- 

 gansett Bay Nov. 1, 1879, contained at least 150,000 eggs." 



To compare the extinction of fish with the extinction of 

 the buffalo is like comparing the sun to the tallow candle. 

 Where there is one buffiilo or one deer born and which can 

 be located, there are millions upon millions of fish hatched 

 each year, wdiich inhabit the unfathomable waters that com- 

 prise three-fourths of the globe. The selectmen around 

 Buzzard's Bay might as well think of pumping the ocean dry 

 as of exhausting it of its fish by any means which man can 

 employ. 



Oppian wrote, in the second century : — 



" Yearly their Eggs the pregnant Females lay, 

 One annual Birth restores the A'ast Decay." 



