62 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
whole series of figures, to advance any judgment on this subject. 
I may, however, be very certain that in some special localities 
sea fish are scarcer than they were in former years. Professor 
Baird informs us on the best authority—and I may say that no 
one is more careful and accurate than our most distinguished 
fellow-member, the United States Fish Commissioner—that hal- 
libut, once plenty, are becoming scarcer every day. Formerly it 
was caught near shore in large quantities ; to-day long and ex- 
pensive trips have to be made to secure it. Spanish mackerel is 
also another most prominent case of the absence of a fish, most 
particularly in the waters adjacent tothis city. Although it does 
not come within the province of this brief paper to enter into 
details accounting for the absence of the Spanish mackerel in 
New York waters, I can only state that it is believed to arise 
mainly from the dumping of the city refuse in our bay. 
Now, as to that great staple fish which forms the bulk of our 
fish food, cod, perhaps its absence in certain localities will be 
found to be quite positive, though such want of fiish in one area 
may be made up by catches in other quarters. The object, then, 
of such specific investigations derivable fron the examination and 
comparison of this vast series of fish tables, which will be sub- 
mitted to the United States Fish Commissioner, will he to elim- 
inate these facts: Whether fish of a certain kind have been 
plenty or scarce. There is every reason to suppose, in looking 
at this vast subject in a general way, that constancy being a rule 
of nature, the quantity of the sea fish will not vary a great deal , 
when an average of years is taken. It is unsafe to corner nature. | 
The year 1880 may have been a bad year for fish, which we will 
call A and a good one for another fish, which we will call B. 
But had we been able to study the decade from 1870 to 1880, we 
might have found in certain years A was plenty and B scarce, 
and so the general average of A and B were about the same. 
But now, though we might arrive at this deduction, that is no 
reason why we should not, if we could, try and make A and B 
plenty all the year raund. A is scarce off New York Bay and 
continues getting scarcer, and fairly plenty off*Cape Cod. To 
get the fish A from Cape Cod may be easy enough, but still A 
will cost a fraction more to bring it to New York market. These 
