REPORTS OF STORAGE HOLDINGS. 29 



In order to relieve the congestion of the work of compilations at 

 the first of the month, incidental to the preparation of other storage 

 reports, and thus enable the Bureau to handle its work more economi- 

 cally, the reports for fish are obtained for the fifteenth of each month. 



When these reports were begun, many firms did not have sufficient 

 records to enable them to furnish exact data. For this reason the 

 reports for the months of October to December, inclusive, are omitted 

 from this review. However, a very accurate tabulation of the stocks 

 for these dates is found in the tables comparing the holdings of 1918 

 with those of 1917. 



Exceptionally complete reports have been obtained from the ware- 

 houses storing fish. Reports have been received from every firm on 

 the list of the Bureau for every month during 1918 except that one 

 firm failed to report its holdings for July. For several months reports 

 from a few firms were received too late to be included in the report 

 for that month. Their holdings are included in the revised tabula- 

 tions in this bulletin. 



The descriptions of the different varieties of fish quoted hereafter 

 are selected from the report of the Bureau of the Census on Fisheries 

 of the United States, 1908. 



BLUEFISH. 



This is "a very gamy food fish found on the Atlantic and Gulf 

 Coasts. On the coast of the New England and Middle States, it is 

 called 'blue fish'; in Rhode Island, 'horse mackerel'; south of Cape 

 Hatteras, 'skip jack'; in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, 

 'tailor' and 'greenfish'; in the Gulf of Mexico, 'blue fish.' They vary 

 in weight from 1 to 20 pounds, according to the season and locality. 

 Large numbers are caught during the summer with nets, traps, seines, 

 and hand lines." 



On January 15, 1918, the reports to the Bureau showed stocks of 

 156,664 pounds. The holdings decreased until July 1, when less than 

 25,000 pounds remained in cold storage. There was a slight increase 

 from July 15 to August 15, but the most of the holdings of the season 

 were placed in cold storage between August 15 and September 15. 

 The increase in stocks during that time amounted to 176,753 pounds. 

 The largest quantity reported during the year was held on October 15, 

 and amounted to a little more than 275,000 pounds. This quantity 

 was more than 50 per cent greater than the holdings of the same date 

 in 1917. The quantity of bluefish frozen during 1918 amounted to 

 approximately one-third of one per cent of the total fish frozen during 

 the year. 



