PRESENT COXDITIOX OF THE FISHEEIES. 47 



from the 20tli of Juue, the ocean used to appear to be literally covered 

 with menhaden. Now there are not a qnarter as many as there used 

 to be. People think they are plenty because, by using a purse-net one 

 or two hundred fatlioms long, they can i)urse several hundred barrels 

 at a haul. Menhaden spawn in all the little bays as they ])ass along 

 the coast. They go into some rivers sometimes. I think they spawn 

 early in the season. I have seen schools of young menhaden in the fall, 

 but 1 do not recollect seeing any lately. 



I think the scup spawn in some still places in our harbor. When we 

 first catch them the spawn is very, fine, and about the latter part of 

 June they begin to lose the spawn. Scup feed on clams and muscles. 



Mr. GeorGtE F. Dunham. I have stopped at anchor over night in 

 two fathoms water, and in the morning have found scup-spawn sticking 

 to my rope, Flerring spawn in the grass. I never found a scup in a 

 blue-fish nor an eel. Menhaden and squid are their principal food. 



Mr. WiNSLOW. Sea-clams were not here until about three years ago. 

 I first observed them by seeing the ducks over them. Four years ago, 

 perhaps, there was a bed three miles long of little ones, about a quarter 

 of an inch long, and the ducks found them and fed on them. The sec- 

 ond year, also, the ducks came, but the clams were pretty large for 

 them to swallow, and the third year they did not come. 



Mr. Dunham. It is not the scup they catch that makes them so 

 scarce; it is the spawn they kill. I have caught spawning scup and 

 have sold the spawn — quarts and quarts. Scup bite here when they 

 first come; blue-fish will not. 



Captain Gardner. Have been on the south shore of the island 

 eight years; have never caught any scup there. I catch codfish, had- 

 dock, pollock, halibut, and plaice, which looks like a halibut a good 

 deal. The plaice-fish weigh sometimes twenty i:)ounds. The}" are as 

 good a fish as the halibut. Flat-fish are much more scarce than they 

 used to be a few years ago. 



I catch a good many dog-fish. They are on our shoals. I went off 

 the 6th of June and caught them on the 10th. In six weeks I have 

 caught about thirteen hundred. They grow there four feet long ; will aver- 

 age three feet. I have caught but few blue-fish, and those when fishing 

 for cod-fish on the bottom, I do not think the blue-fish stop there at all. 

 In the fall of the year I have no doubt there are many mackerel about 

 there, for you see fowl and fin-backs, x^orpo^ses and gannets, and I 

 think they are after mackerel. 



Mr. Dunham. In the deep holes out here in the pond, I used to go 

 with my boat and throw a stone overboard to give the scup a start, and 

 then I would throw my dog over, and so I would follow, and drive them up 

 to the shore and clear out of the water. They would spring out on the 

 bank, and I have caught five hundred at a time in that way. 



Mr. Macy. Within ten years I have seen boys go to the wharf and 

 get scup, as many as thej wanted, but for the last five years we get 

 them only at Long Hill. 



Hyannis, Massachusetts, June 29, 1871. 

 Captain Almoran Hallet : 



I have been fishing off the coast here for twenty years. The number 

 of fish has decreased very much, and I think the decrease is due to the 

 pounds. It is not for tlie want of proper food, for there are a great 

 many shell-fish and muscles here, and the fish that we catch are full of 



