112 EEPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



ON THE POSSIBLE EXHAUSTION OF SEA-FISHEEIES. 



BY THEODORE LYMAN, MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSIONER OF INLAND 



FISHERIES. 



[From the sixth report of the commissioner, 1872.] 



Turn now tbe inquiry from river fishes to those that inhabit saltwater 

 only 5 and take a representative. The scup belongs to Eim baud's di- 

 vision of " white fishes," {poisson hlanc,) that is to say, those which re- 

 treat in cold weather to the off-shore depths, and return with the warm 

 weather to the shallow water close to the coast. Of this group no rep- 

 resentative has been more abundant on the south shore of Cape Cod 

 than the scup. Early in May they used"to make their entry into all the 

 bays and fiords in great multitudes. Their route is not so well made 

 out as it should be, but, according to the best observations, they make 

 their advance through the gap, about fifty miles wide, between Mon- 

 tauk Point on the west and Gay Head on the east. Where they come 

 from is a more difficult question ; for the species is plenty as far south 

 as Georgia,* and nobody can say how far south the Vineyard Sound 

 scup retire during the winter. It has been guessed that they go to the 

 edge of the Gulf Stream ; and this is as good as any other good guess. 

 The same remarks apply to our shad, which come round Montauk Point, 

 and thence, according to the fisherman's belief,! oblique westward to 

 enter Connecticut River. It is the received opinion that the scup, as 

 they near the shore, "fan out" to the northward and eastward, filling 

 Narragansett and Buzzard's Bays and Vineyard Sound. J. N. Luce, a 

 very intelligent observer, testified, at the legislative hearing of 1870, that 

 scup appeared first at the west end of the Vineyard, and coasted its 

 northern shore, passing into the tidal x)onds in succession, beginning 

 with Menemsha Bight, (see plate 1,) and continuing eastward. The big 

 fish, some weighing two pounds, were in-shore, and the smaller ones out 

 in deeper water. The^^ appeared first at Gay Head between April 25 

 and May 10, and then were full of spawn, but, by the end of June, all 

 the females were shotten ; and in August, the tidal ponds were crowded 

 with the young. The first frost was a signal for old and young to leave 

 these ponds ; the latter in such vast numbers that whole windrows of them 

 were sometimes thrown back on shore by the surf. Of these big scup in 

 the salt ponds, he had seen none since 1865, and he noted a diminution, 

 beginning at the east end of the island, as soon as pounds were set in 

 the neighborhood, whence he argued that in their passage eastward they 

 got completely cut oft* before reaching the extremity. 



The scup arrive near Newport from the 10th to the 12th of May ; at 

 this season they push their way slowly, sometimes making no more than 

 four miles in a day. They then are said to be " numb," and are thought 

 to be blind. The origin of these absurd notions is the fiict that they are 

 full of spawn, and are feeling their way cautiously, like most fishes in 

 like circumstances ; moreover, the temperature of the water variously 

 affects their movements. When a cold northeaster blows, they hold 

 more in dee}) water, to the great loss of tlie trappers. Their mode of en- 

 tering Narragansett Bay was a subject of dispute. Some of the Saug- 

 konnet trai)pers, whose interest it was to show that they took the scup 

 coining out of the bay, mnintained that the fish entered by the westpas- 



* Holbrook, p. 175, pi. xxv, Fig. 1. 

 t l^oport for 18(57, pp. 8, 12, 49. 



