54 Big Game Fishes 



as large, nearly one thousand pounds in weight. 

 Dr. Holder reported to the society that these 

 fishes were very plentiful in Massachusetts Bay 

 in 1850, and that he had measured several which 

 were ten feet in length. Another fish taken at 

 Bass Point, Nahant, was examined by Dr. Holder 

 and Louis Agassiz, who were then investigating 

 the fauna of the bay; it was found to measure 

 ten feet in length ; girth, six feet ; weight, six 

 hundred and fourteen pounds. The discrepancy 

 between weight and length in different fishes is 

 one of the interesting features in controversial 

 angling, the weight being a question of condi- 

 tion, not length. 



On European shores the horse-mackerel or 

 tuna reaches the Lafodin Islands in latitude 69, 

 and can be found well up on the Newfoundland 

 coast in summer. It appears at Provincetown, 

 Cape Cod, in June, leaving in October, and is 

 harpooned for its oil, a large fish producing 

 twenty-three or twenty-four gallons. Regarding 

 the range of the fish in the Atlantic, Kingsley 

 says : " Mr. Matthew Jones of Halifax, Nova 

 Scotia, writes, * The tunny is very common on 

 the eastern coast of Nova Scotia in summer, and 

 is known to the fishermen as "albacore." The 



