FISHES. 185 



entire, the hinder portion will be bitten off and the anterior part allowed to float 

 away or sink. It is even maintained, with great earnestness, that such is the gluttony 

 of the fish, that when the stomach becomes full, the contents are disgorged, and then 

 again filled. It is certain that it kills many more fish than it requires for its own 

 support." 



Postulating that the blue-fish remains by the New England coast one hundred and 

 twenty days. Prof. Baird has estimated that, if each blue-fish, averaging five pounds, 

 devours or destroys even half its own weight of other fish per day (and he is " not 

 sure that the estimate of some witnesses of twice this weight is not more nearly 

 correct"), "we will have, during the same period, a daily loss of twenty-five hun- 

 dred million pounds, equal to three hundred thousand millions for the season." 

 Even this estimate takes account of "only three- or four-year-old fish, of at least 

 three to five pounds in weight. We must, however, allow for those of smaller size, 

 and a hundredfold or more in number, all engaged simultaneously in the butchery 

 referred to." 



Almost all fishes inhabiting the same waters may serve as prey to the blue-fish. 

 " They appear," again to quote Prof. Baird, " to eat anything that swims, of suitable 

 size, fish of all kinds, but perhaps more especially the menhaden, which they seem to 

 follow along the coast, and which they attack with such ferocity as to drive them on 

 the shore, where they are sometimes piled up -in windrows to the depth of a foot or 

 more." But they do not confine themselves to fishes ; the squid appears likewise to 

 be a favorite source of food, and worms that swim in the sea have also been found in 

 large numbers in their stomachs. 



The reproduction and early history of the blue-fish are still but partially known. 

 It is asserted that in the Florida waters, in May and June, when the blue-fish enter 

 the bays, mature females are found full of spawn. "With the larger fish the spawn 

 is nearly ripe, and with the small and intermediate sizes is found in nearly all stages." 

 According to Mr. Stearns, " the spawning season of the blue-fish in Florida includes 

 several months, apparently May, June, July, and August." It is claimed that the fish 

 spawns " in the bays, sounds, and bayous," and the young fry are found in July as 

 well as parts of June and August as short as a half to three quarters of an inch in 

 length. In November and December the smaller ones measure about three to five 

 inches in length, and those of intermediate size from ten to fifteen inches. The time 

 when they reach maturity is not known, but possibly it is three or four years. In the 

 north, spawning fishes are scarcely ever seen, but young fish about five inches long, 

 presumably those of the year, enter Vineyard Sound about the middle of August. By 

 the beginning of September they are six to seven inches long, and on their appearance 

 in the second year measure about twelve to fifteen inches in length, and thereafter in- 

 creaso in a still more rapid ratio. According to Prof. Baird, the fish which pass 

 eastward from Vineyard Sound in the spring, weighing five to seven pounds, are rep- 

 resented, according to general impression, by the ten to fifteen pound fish of the 

 autumn. 



The blue-fish ranks as one of the most esteemed of the American food fishes, and 

 is, it has been claimed, surpassed in popular esteem only by the Spanish mackerel and 

 the pompano. It does not, however, keep very well, and there has been considerable 

 caprice manifested in the esteem and demand for it. It is even still considered, or 

 has been until lately, unfit for food in some ports of the south, and even in the 

 markets of the capital of the country, and Prof. Goode remarks that in Washington 



