62 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



37. They usually go to a place with rocky bottom to get some kind of 

 crabs or something of the sort. 



47. 1 do not think the small scup are the males accomi)auying the 

 big females, because in the large scup you find spawn, but in the mid- 

 dle-sized ones you do not have any sliow of that sort. The breeding 

 females are a little larger than the breeding males — simply swelled out 

 more. 



45. I do not know w^hat becomes of the spawn when laid, but I think 

 it sticks to the bottom ; because if it floated at the top I should have 

 seen it when scup were j^leuty. All the spawn that we find iu the 

 pounds is in the bottom of the bowl — none on the sides. 



47. I think they spawn in the school. 



63. I do not know of any ; I do not know what the small fish feed on. 



68. I never knew any sort of disease in scup. 



71. Salt menhaden is said to be about the best bait, and salt clams. 

 We generally use soft clams for scup. 



72. In a seine, mostly in the fall. Sometimes in a floating net. 



74. When most plenty, the average catch with a hook and line would 

 be eight or nine hundred a day. They would bite about as fast as you 

 could put the bait in, and you pulled them in two at a time. 



77. Scup, and all fish in the sound, bite best on the slack of the tide, 

 and not when it is running in full strength. In the bay it does not 

 make so much difference. 



86. New York and Philadelphia. 



79. It is good salted ; people used to salt them for winter. 



80. They are best when first caught; but they eat them -in New York 

 when they have been caught a fortnight. 



83. Never sold in any quantity to the guano-works ; when used for 

 manure they are put directly on the land. Never used for oil. 



84. Highest price at wholesale this year was six cents a i)ound ; the 

 lowest, two cents. The price Avas less this year than last ; not because 

 more were sent to market, but because there were so many pounds 

 down. 



I think the fish-pounds are a curse to the country, but I don't believe 

 in Ehode Island catching our fish. In 1860 there was but one fish- 

 pound, that at Waquoit, and before that we used to catch scup at Saughk- 

 onnet, but after they had it down three or four years we did not begin 

 to catch one-half the fish we did before. The}^ used to come from Nau- 

 shon to buy scup to put on the land, and then we tried to get a living 

 by catching them, but as soon as they got pounds at Saughkonnet our fish 

 were gone. There are not now one-hundredth part as many sea-bass as 

 there used to be. 



MENHADEN. 



1. Known as pogee, here. 



2. Some are found all summer ; it probably breeds here. 



3. Tliey first appear at the westward. They strike Montauk Point, 

 and follow along the coast exactly like the scup, but go rather more into 

 the bays. They go in more shallow water ; I have seen them in 12 feet. 

 A school looks reddish. I have seen a school a mile wide and a mile 

 and a lialf long. Tlu\y frequently swim near the surface, and make a 

 little disturbance that can be seen. The first school swims rather deep, 

 but as they become more plenty they can be seen. They generally 

 come in about the 10th of May ; this year we got the first the 21st of 

 April — about three weeks earlier than the average. We got about a 



