STATE ICHTHYOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
By THEODORE GILL. 
il 
The history of the ichthyology of Massachusetts has never been 
written, and a sketch of such appeared to me to be the best and most 
seasonable response I could make to the invitation to address the inves- 
tigators and students assembled at the headquarters in Massachusetts 
of what was affectionately known for a generation as the Fish Com- 
mission, but has recently been renamed the Bureau of Fisheries. The 
history is an interesting and a rather remarkable one. Of course, in 
the time allotted for an address, only the salient features of a long his- 
tory can be given, and many minor communications and even popular 
works relating to the ichthyology of the region in question must remain 
unnoticed. The room is requisite for a neglected subject. We are 
often curious to know something about the personality of the men 
whose work we consider and such information is generally difficult for 
the scientific student to obtain. Of several of the old and departed 
writers on the fishes of Massachusetts notices will be now given, and 
when reference is next made to their writings, perhaps it may be done 
with a new interest and better means of judging their work. 
The history of Massachusetts ichthyology begins early in the history 
of the United States—earlier, even, than any settlement by English in 
the state. Capt. John Smith, who acquired celebrity in connection 
with » more southern province, having induced certain London mer- 
chats to furnish him with two vessels for exploration of the New 
England coast, in the spring of 1614 visited and made a sketch map of 
part of the coast of territory granted to the Plymouth Company. In 
‘*A Description of New England”, published in 1616, he enumerated 
the fishes. Excluding the ‘‘ whales, grampus, porkpisces,” or porpoises, 
and the shelltish, the names of sixteen were mentioned—“‘ turbut, stur- 
gion, cod, hake, haddock, cole, cusk, or small ling, shark, mackerrell, 
aAn address delivered at Woods Hole, before the Marine Biological Laboratory, on the evening of 
August 3, 1904; reprinted from Science, revised, and with many additional paragraphs and notes. 
The early history may be found given at greater length in the new edition of Goode’s American 
Fishes, edited by Gill and published by Dana Estes & Co., of Boston (1903). 
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