No. 4.] THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 139 



" We all know the enormous influence which a warm or cold year 

 has on the production of insects and on vegetable life. Precisely 

 the same thing occurs in the sea, and the minute forms of life on 

 which fish feed are very sensitive to the cold or warmth of any 

 particular j^ear. When there is a scarcity of this form of life, the 

 fish are obliged to scatter in search of food, and are not together 

 to be easily caught by the net fishermen ; but the great safeguard 

 asrainst the exhaustion of the fish harvest is found in their wonder- 

 ful productive power." 



The Hon. Mr. Atwood, member of the Massachusetts 

 Senate from the Cape District in 1878, stated that he had 

 been engaged in the fishing business for fifty-one years, 

 and that there was no accounting for the coming and going 

 of fish. He says : — 



"About 1840 there appeared on our coast south of Cape Cod 

 large quantities of shad, and fishermen from Massachusetts, Con- 

 necticut and Rhode Island engaged in this fishery a'nd found it 

 profitable. In 1842 an act was passed by the Legislature to pre- 

 vent fishermen from other States fishing for shad within our waters. 

 I myself engaged in this fishery, but we found there was no need 

 of the passage of such an act, as the shad appeared in small num- 

 bers, so that not enough were caught to pay expenses. What was 

 the cause of their coming, what was the cause of their going?" 



There have also been great changes in the coming and 

 going of our common mackerel. While in some years they 

 come to us in great abundance, in other years they are com- 

 paratively scarce. In 1831, before these novel methods 

 were introduced, there were 385,000 barrels caught ; in 

 1841,. 50,000 barrels; and in 1870, 243,000 barrels. As 

 Mr. Atwood says, "It would seem that the catch of fish 

 from year to year difters as widely as the product of our 

 land." 



The same argument was advanced in 1878, when it was 

 proposed to have an international treaty w ith England, to 

 prohibit the use of purse-seines. Mr. Rich, a large fish- 

 dealer in Boston, delivered a lecture in which he stated that 

 mackerel were gone, never to return to us, unless })urse- 

 seine fishing was prohibited ; and yet, notwithstanding this 

 prophecy, the catch of mackerel never was so great as it 

 was from 1880 to 1885. 



