AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2823 



Q. There is no probability of changing that relation which fish seem to 

 bear to one another ? A. They all have the relation of attack, defense, 

 pursuit, and flight. 



Q. But, notwithstanding that, I suppose they belong to what you call 

 the balance of nature ? A. The balances of nature are such that it is 

 extremely difficult to say what will be the effect on the fisheries of de- 

 stroying or multiplying a particular stock of fish. The sharks, for in- 

 stance, are destroying great quantities of food-fish. A new enterprise 

 has just been started, and will be opened in the course of a few weeks, 

 to utilize the sharks, porpoises, dogfish, and tunnies. An establishment 

 expects to work up twelve million pounds annually of those fish, for- 

 which heretofore there has not been a market. They are caught in great 

 quantities on the shores, but not utilized, and now there is to be a mar- 

 ket for them, and the parties offer the same price for them as they do 

 for menhaden. 



Q. Where is the company started ? A. At Wood's Holl, Mass. The 

 company expects to keep two or three steamers constantly traversing 

 the coast from Block Island to Penobscot Bay, or Bay of Fundy, and the 

 company advertises that it will take all dogfish, sharks, porpoises, black- 

 fish, and other offal that may be offered to it, up to the amount, I think, 

 of 20 or 25 tons a day. By a new process, the oil will be extracted with- 

 out heat, leaving the meat entirely free of grease, and, when it is dried, 

 it will be ground up to make what they call fish flour, or meal, which 

 can be used for fertilizing purposes or food, as you please. The same 

 substance is made from cod in Norway and is an article of food. It 

 makes a very nice form of food, and is-used as fish-cakes and other prep- 

 arations. 



Q. It can be made up like flour ? A. Yes ; and can be mixed up with- 

 out any difficulty. The effect of the abstraction of twelve million pounds 

 of those predaceous fish will undoubtedly be very great. Whether, as 

 those fish eat bluefish, it may not allow bluefish to multiply, and in that 

 way restore the balance again, it is impossible to say; but if it was to 

 take bluefish also, we would relax very largely the pressure on eatable 

 fish, and they would necessarily increase. 



Q. Is the philosophy of that substantially that when one kind of 

 predaceous fish becomes veryjnumerous, and is destroying useful fish, it " 

 either disappears in time, or by what we regard as the regular course of 

 nature, and the work of man, that fish diminishes, or is exterminated, 

 and others take its place ? A. After they have eaten up everything, 

 they will start out and go somewhere else. Whenever they have made 

 their favorite food scarce, they go somewhere else. So it is a very seri- 

 ous question as to what had better be done, no matter what promise 

 there may be, in regard to altering the relations willfully and purposely 

 between the different forms of the animals of the sea. If you take them 

 for food, you allow the consequences to come as they may, but any ques- 

 tion of protecting one kind of fish, or destroying or exterminating 

 others, should always be considered with a great deal of care, and from 

 a great many points of view that do not strike the mind or attention at 

 first thought. 



Q. To undertake to regulate the relations of fish beyond shoal water 

 where you can fish with nets, seines, and pounds, would be impracti- 

 cable ? A. It would be very difficult, indeed, and the effect would prob- 

 ably be very trifling. 



Q. You spoke yesterday of the fish of the Southern States, the fish- 

 eries of which in the new order of things are being rather more de- 

 veloped by greater diversity of industry, and so forth ; can you mention 





