SYSTEMATIC CATALOGUE OP FISHES. 217 



The blue-fish is one of the most voracious and destructive of fishes. Com- 

 pared with its ravages, the work of man in killing fishes is utterly insignificant. 

 The remarks of Professor Baird on this subject may appropriately be quoted: 



There is no parallel in point of destructiveness to the blue-fish among the marine species 

 on our coast, whatever may the case among some of the carnivorous fish of the South Ameri- 

 can waters. The blue-fish has beeo well likened to an animated chopping-machine, the busi- 

 ness of which is to cut to pieces and otherwise destroy as many fish as possible in a given space 

 of time. All the writers are unanimous in regard to the destructiveness of the blue-fish. 

 Going in large schools, in pursuit of fish much inferior to themselves in size, they move along 

 like a pack of hungry wolves, destroying everything before them. Their trail is marked by 

 fragments of fish and by the stain of blood in the sea, as, where the fish is too large to be swal- 

 lowed entire, the hinder portion will be bitten off and the anterior part allowed to float 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 fiUed. It is certain that 

 it kills many more fish than it requires for its own support. 



The youngest fish, equally with the older, perform this function of destruction, and 

 although they occasionally devour crabs, worms, etc., the bulk of their sustenance throughout 

 the greater part of the year is derived from other fish. Nothing is more common than to 

 find a small blue-fish of six or eight inches in length under a school of minnows making continual 

 dashes and captures among them. The stomachs of the blue-fish of all sizes, with rare excep- 

 tions, are found loaded with the other fish, sometimes to the number of thirty or forty, either 

 entire or in fragments. 



As already referred to, it must also be borne in mind that it is not merely the small 

 fry that are thus devoured, and which it is expected will fall a prey to other animals, but 

 that the food of the blue-fish consists very largely of individuals which have already passed a 

 large percentage of the chances against their attaining maturity, many of them, indeed, hav- 

 ing arrived at the period of spawning. To make the case more clear, let us realize for a 

 moment the number of blue-fish that exist on our coast in the summer season. As far as I 

 can ascertain by the statistics obtained at the fishing stations on the New England coast, 

 as also from the records of the New York markets, kindly furnished by Middleton & Carman, 

 of the Fulton Market, the capture of blue-fish, from New Jersey to Monomoy, during the 

 season, amounts to not less than one million individuals, averaging five or six pounds each. 

 Those, however, who have seen the blue-fish in his native waters, and realized the immense 

 number there existing, will be quite willing to admit that probably not one fish in a thousand 

 is ever taken by man. If, therefore, we have an actual capture of one million, we may allow 

 one thousand millions as occuring in the extent of our coasts referred to, even neglecting the 

 smaller ones, which perhaps should also be taken into the account. 



An allowance of ten fish per day to each blue-fish is not excessive, according to the testi- 

 mony ehcited from the fishermen and substantiated by the stomachs of those examined; this 

 gives ten thousand millions of fish destroyed per day. And as the period of the stay of the 

 blue-fish on the New England coast is at least one hundred and twenty days, we have in round 

 numbers twelve hundred million milhons of fish devoured in the course of a season. Again, 

 if each blue-fish, averaging five pounds, devours or destroys even half its own weight of other 

 fish per day (and I am not sure that the estimate of some witnesses of twice this weight is not 

 more nearly correct), we will have, dining the same period, a daily loss of twenty-five hundred 

 million poimds, equal to three hundred thousand millions for the season. 



This estimate applies to 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 hundred-fold or more in 

 number, all engaged simultaneously in the butchery referred to. 



We can scarcely conceive of a number so vast; and however much we may diminish, within 

 reason, the estimate of the number of blue-fish and the average of their captures, there still 



