REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 203 
was one of the most successful since the establishment of the fishery. 
The Maine fishermen took over 10,000,000 pounds of menhaden in 1889, 
for which they received more than $28,000, and the factories located in 
the State utilized over 26,000,000 fish in the preparation of oil and 
guano, having a value of $87,144. 
New England vessels fishing for Spanish mackerel in Florida.—The 
winter and spring of 1889-90 was quite noteworthy in the annals of 
the New England and Florida fisheries because of the experimental 
visits of two mackerel vessels belonging at Gloucester, Mass., to the 
west coast of Florida for the purpose of engaging in the capture of 
Spanish mackerel, which abound in these waters at that season. The 
vessels made their headquarters at Key West, and shipped their catch 
in ice to Tampa, Punta Gorda, and New York. One of the vessels, 
the schooner Hattie S. Clark, fished from December 1, 1889, to April 1, 
1890, and caught during that time 100,000 pounds of Spanish mackerel, 
for which $8,000 was received, the crew of 12 men sharing $225 each. 
The other schooner, the Schuyler Colfax, made only two trips, between 
February 1 and April 1, 1890, and landed 30,000 pounds, the value of 
which was $2,400. The owner of the schooner reports that the vessels 
averaged 8,000 or 10,009 pounds of fish each trip and that this catch 
was made in half a day’s actual fishing, although, because of the delay 
in getting ice, it usually took about two weeks tocomplete atrip. This 
trial opens up a new field for winter operations on the part of mack- 
erel vessels, and the continued scarcity of regular mackerel on the New 
England coast may lead to the establishment of an important winter 
fishery off the coast of Florida. 
Voyage to Africa for mackerel.—The searcity of mackerel on the At- 
lantic coast of the United States, which has been marked since 1885 and 
has been more prolonged than during any previous similar period in 
the history of the fishery, prompted the owner of the schooner Alice, 
of Provincetown, Mass., to undertake the prosecution of the fishery 
on the southern coast of Africa, where whalers and merchantmen had 
reported that mackerel occurred in abundance. The vessel sailed for 
Cape of Good Hope in October, 1889, and made the longest cruise ever 
accomplished by a mackerel vessel, the distance being about. 7,000 
miles. On arriving at the grounds, fish were found in considerable 
numbers, and during the first nine months about 900 barrels of mack- 
erel were packed, and some were shipped to the United States, where 
_ they arrived about December 1, 1890. Some of the fish were of large 
size, being 2 feet in length and weighing over 3 pounds when salted, 
and the consignment sold at $14 to $18 per barrel. Examples were 
sent to this office for examination, and the fish were found to be the 
bull’s-eye, chub, or thimble-eye mackerel (Scomber colias), and not the 
common mackerel of our coast (S. scombrus). During the second sea- 
son of the vessel’s sojourn on the African coast only a few fish were 
