THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 89 
difficult to tell how much effect the hand of man has in lessening 
them. If, for example, we argue that traps and purse seines 
diminish the crop of menhaden by capturing them in enormous 
numbers, we leave out of mind the fact that these same traps and 
purse-seines also capture blue-fish and small sharks, which are 
thus taken from their daily occupation of killing menhaden. 
Again, when menhaden entirely disappear from a long stretch 
of coast, they are, in reality, no scarcer than before. They re- 
fuse to come to their wonted waters either because the tempera- 
ture is too low, or because their favorite food is not to be found. 
They are not destroyed, only absent. There are familiar in- 
stances of such disappearances. The scup was plentiful when 
the whites first landed in New England; they afterwards disap- 
peared, and re-appeared about the beginning of the present cen- 
tury. Ihe blue-fish was caught on the southern coast of New 
England from 1659, for more than a hundred years. In 1764 
they disappeared, and after an absence of sixty-six years, they 
re-appeared about 1830. 
Another element that must be borne in mind in estimating the 
total catch of fish is the number of men and the kind of engines 
employed. If, for example, the population of a coast is scanty, 
and only a dozen men go a fishing, each of them is likely to 
have a good catch; but when the coast becomes thickly settled, 
a hundred men will fish, and though each one may take but few, 
the catch of the hundred will be much greater than that of the 
twelve. 
In the light of the patient investigations of the past dozen 
years, it is safe to assert, first, that our fresh water fisheries have 
in general, greatly diminished since early times, and have, in 
some cases, been destroyed. Secondly, that the local coast fish- 
eries have also to a greater or less degree diminished. 
What have our fishery commissions done to remedy or to pal- 
liate these evils? It is fair to say that they have done a good 
deal, and are in a way to do more. 
Their first, and perhaps most valuable service has been to ex- 
cite universal interest in our fisheries, and to draw general at- 
tention to their importance. The second great step in advance 
has been the accumulation of a vast amount of accurate inform- 
