156 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
During April, 1890, young cod measuring from 1} to 2 inches long, 
were very plentiful all along the shores, and were taken by Mr, Ed- 
wards in his small collecting seine. _ The latter part of the month they 
had entered Woods Holl harbor and had become common around the 
wharves. In May large fish, weighing from 5 to 15 pounds apiece, made 
their appearance in these waters in very large numbers, and were 
abundant in Buzzards Bay from Cuttyhunk to Quisset, and in Vineyard 
Sound from Robinson Holl to Falmouth Heights. The fishermen caught 
them in their fish traps, and they also entered the lobster pots, some- 
thing previously unheard of. A small funnel-shaped bass trap set on 
the shore off Nonamessett Island caught 23 of these large cod on May 
3, 15 on the 5th, and 8 on the 6th of the same month. They were the 
first cod ever taken in that locality. From the latter part of October 
until the end of November, 1890, fish of good size were abundant 
throughout Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay and in the neighboring 
regions. October 31, Mr. Edwards reported that since the 20th of the. 
month all the tautog fishermen in the sound and bay had been eateli- 
ing codfish every day, measuring from 15 to 20 inches long. On No- 
vember 18, he stated that individuals weighing from 5 to 10 pounds 
each were very plentiful in Vineyard Sound, and also occurred in Buz- 
zards Bay. They were also said to be abundant at the same time on 
Nantucket Shoals and off Cape Cod. During the latter part of the 
month the boats were obtaining from 75 to 90 good-sized cod at each 
tide off the mouth of Edgartown Harbor, and sometimes as many as 100 
off Nantucket Bar. There is no record of this species having been cap- 
tured previously in either of these localities. On April 30, 1891, Mr. 
Edwards reported that codfish were more abundant in the Vineyard 
Sound region than they had been for thirty-five or forty years, and some 
of them were of large size. 
On November 24, 1890, Mr. Willard Nye, of New Bedford, Mass., re- 
ported that during the same fall codfish had been more numerous than 
for many years in the shoal waters at the mouth of Buzzards Bay and 
to the westward. They have been caught, he states, in the traps from 
Salter Point off Narragansett River, Buzzards Bay, as far to the west as 
Seaconnet Point, and at many places inside of Buzzards Bay, which is 
something new even to the oldest inhabitant. The fish taken in shoal 
water are of two sizes, one averaging about 4, the other about 6 pounds, 
each. They are both school cod and do not have the red color of the 
so-called rock-cod, stragglers of which are caught every year in shallow 
water. Cod fishing in Buzzards Bay has been a rarity for a great many 
years. 
On December 3, 1890, Mr. George A. Griffin, wrote from Wakefield, 
R. I., to the effect that codfish had been very plentiful during the fall 
off Narragansett Pier and Point Judith. They had formerly been abun- 
dant there, but have been very scarce during the past 20 years. 
