PRESENT CONDITION OF THE FISHERIES. 41 



Answer. No, sir; you would see them month in and month out, if not 

 disturbed. 



Question. What do blue-fish eat ? 



Answer. They will eat everything that is living. We have a great 

 many launces that they eat. They take young scup and squid. They 

 eat a good numy eels, too, and anything the}" can get hold of. [The 

 general opinion was that blue-fish do not often eat eels.] The blue-tish 

 eats off the tail of the eel. 



Captain R. F. Pease. You may go to work and dress 1,500 blue-fish, 

 and i'U bet you won't find an eel in any of them. There is a time when, 

 I think, they are spaw^ning, when they will not bite at all, and tbey have 

 not anything in them ; but we generally find them pretty full. Eight 

 or nine years ago, any laboring man could go down to the wharf and get 

 as many scup as he wanted for breakfast, and then go to his day's work. 

 They were good-sized scup; but now, if we get any, they are not fit to 

 eat. Fourteen years ago, I could make more money catching blue-fish 

 at a cent and a quarter a pound than I can now for three cents. I could 

 sell them at three-fourths of a cent or a cent a pound, and make good 

 wages at that. The vessels that come here now in the first part of the 

 season offer two cents a i)ound. 



Nantucket, July 18, 1871. 



Testimouj^ taken at Nantucket, July 18, 1871, being made up of state- 

 ments by several persons engaged in fishing either with lines or nets of 

 different kinds. Captain C. B. Gardner, Sylvanus Andrews, John G. 

 Orpin, and Captain Winslow being the principal fishers with lines, and 

 Mr. Snow, Gershom Phinney, William C. Marclen, and Mr. Chapm using 

 nets, the last tw^o using hooks and lines also : 



The testimony of those using hooks and lines only was substantially 

 as follows: 



Boat-fishing is nothing now. Blue-fish are not more than half as 

 plenty as five years ago. They were not as x^l^uty five years ago as 

 they were ten years ago. They grew less after the use of seines and 

 gill-nets began. That broke up the schools of fish that used to go 

 around the island two or three times a day. Forty years ago the blue- 

 fish were very small, about ten inches long. They w^ere not here before 

 that. Year by year they became larger, and in about three years 

 obtained their full size. Up to this time blue-fish are scarcer on both 

 sides of the island than the^^ were last year, though early in the season 

 they were more plenty. 



The average catch up to this time has been less this year than last ; 

 but more have been taken, because there have been more nets. Fifty 

 nets, probably, have been added this year, generally on the north side. 

 These are visited every morning. Thej^ are from thirty to forty fathoms 

 long. They will gill a blue-fish that weighs two pounds. Up to within 

 a few years you could go with a boat anywhere in this harbor and get 

 as many blue-fish as you wanted. Now they are driven out by the nets. 

 They used to have spawn in them, but they don^t now. 



Mr. Snow, who uses seines or gill-nets, said : 



The 29th of May we caught the first blue-fish. We don^t catch them 

 as early with the hook as in seines. They came here late this season. 

 About a hundred a day is a good catch this season. They weigli about 

 six or seven i)oands. In September we catch them weighing twelve to 



