74 REPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



wlio criticise the above report of the British commissioners, chiefly be- 

 cause, to arrive at their couchisions, they (the Englishmen) adopted the 

 ver^' same and about the only course acted upon by our own committee. 

 It is true the Englishmen asked 62,000 questions, while our committee 

 did not do so extensive a wrong, for they asked, I believe, only about 

 5,000. The only way in which our committee departed from the English 

 procedure was that tiiree of them spent a day in a steamer visiting our 

 traps. However, they have not thought this visit even worthy of men- 

 tion. So w^e may sui)pose it yielded no important results in their eyes. 



I understand our commissioners to quote, at page 21, from these in- 

 land Massachusetts commissioners, the following words : '' On our 



of menhaden." " At times but absence.'' 



Here allow me to remark that while our committee claim the evidence 

 that horse-mackerel (blue-fish) do not devour large scup, it was fully 

 proved they do devour all the young scup. — (See minority report of 

 winter of 1870.) 



Now, I might read the last two paragraphs on page 21, still quoting 

 the last-cited authoritj^, the inland commissioners of Massachusetts, who 

 merely admit that it is claimed — not x^roved — that no amount or kind 

 of fishing can diminish the " schooling or wandering fish of the high- 

 sea," citing the kinds, and that it is likewise claimed — not proved — that 

 the local bottom fishes, which are peculiar to certain limited areas near 

 the shore, may be greatly reduced, or even practically annihilated, in 

 certain places by improper fishing. Among these they cite the tautog, 

 some others, and also the bass and the scup. 



J^otc, the smq) are Icnown to he sclwoling^ ic cinder ing fisli of the high seas, 

 mid come from the Gulf Stream and from the Florida Cape. This is their 

 undenied history, except here, ivhere the whole question as to scup is 

 begged and distorted bj^ the Massachusetts report. This point thus 

 makes against them. 



All the evidence of our commissioners shows when and how the va- 

 rious runs of scup strike our coast, and that they are not local, but come 

 in from the high seas. I ought to read our report at pp. 12, 13, and 14, 

 to show the judgment of another Massachusetts cominittee. They sum 

 up by saying, (p. 13,) " In view — legislation." And upon the next page 

 they cite the report ot the most able scientific English commission 

 thus : " Yet that commission — be repealed." 



I may dismiss the Massachusetts report by citing from p. 14, that 

 they, among other causes accounting for the diminution of the scup, 

 tautog, &c., in Buzzard's Bay, ascribe it, in part, to a scarcity of food, 

 owing to the deleterious substances thrown into the water from manu- 

 factories, which affect the clams and other species of mollusca, and also 

 to the advent of blue-lish, who drive away nearly all other species of 

 fish. 



Captain Atwood, and I believe others, give the date of the first ap- 

 pearance of the scup in the waters of Buzzard's Bay at 1793, which, 

 let me remark, was just seven years after the terribly severe winter of 

 17S0, and that our scuj) diminished after 1856-'r)7. 



Now as to the variableiu^ss of many species of sea fishes. Dr. Storer, 

 in his History of the Eishes of Massachusetts, which includes the 

 waters of our bay, gives the following facts, written in 1853: " In Aug- 

 ust, 1840 — quite small." Page 45, Storer says : " Dr. Yale — blue-fish 

 came," and nu)re to tlie same effect, on same page. On 23d of June, 

 1847, a sfpieteague, &c. ; ])age 53, Storer says : " Captain Atwood has 

 iSeen," cScc. Page 73 speaks of tiie great abundance of sword-lish at 

 Martha's Vineyard, which eat shoals of mackerel and menliaden, &c. 



