440 NATURAL HISTOEY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



TJie Bluefish are believed to have had a very importaut influence upon the abundance of 

 other species on some parts of the coast. This has been noticed especially on the north side of 

 Cape Cod. South of Cape Cod the small fish occur in such enormous abundance that even the 

 voracity of millions of Blueflsh could hardly produce any effect upon them. Captain Atwood has 

 recorded his belief that the advent of the Blueflsh drove away the plaice or large flounder from 

 those waters, not so much by their direct attacks upon them as by destroying the squid upon 

 which the latter formerly subsisted. He is also of the opinion that the mackerel once, for a time, 

 were aft'ected by them. The mackerel have since returned to those waters in their wonted 

 numbers, but the Blueflsh are not now sufficiently plenty north of Cape Cod to interfere with them. 

 The flight of the mackerel was not an unmitigated evil, however, siiice, as Captain Atwood pointed 

 out, the number of lobsters for a time was very considerably increased. The mackerel fed upon 

 their eggs, and when they were driven away by the Bluefish the lobsters had a better chance to 

 multiply. 



"The Blueflsh sometimes make their way up the rivers to a considerable distance, the adults, 

 however, apparently never entering the perfectly fresh water. They are found in the Potomac as 

 far north as Aquia Creek, and also far up the Hudson; indeed, the young of the year arc taken 

 as high as Sing Sing on the Hudson and other tidal rivers, where the water is entirely fresh." 



EBPEODtJCTiON, — "Little is known of their reproduction. Dr. Yarrow does not give any facts 

 in regard to this subject, at Fort Macon, except that spawn was seen to run out of a small 

 female caught July 14. Dr. Holbrook is also silent on this head. Mr. Genio C. Scott says the 

 spawning beds are visited by the parent in June, and consist of quiet nooks or bays. Mr. It. B. 

 Eoosevelt states that very diminutive young occur in immense numbers along the coast at the end 

 of September or beginning of October (' Game Fish of America,' 1862, 169). I found the young 

 fish at Carson's Inlet, Beasley's Point, New Jersey, in July, 1854, two or three inches in length, 

 and more compressed than the adult ; but farther east, on Vineyard Sound, although diligent 

 search was conducted, between the middle of June and the first of October, with most eflBcient 

 apparatus in the way of fine-meshed nets, I met with nothing excepting fish that made their 

 appearance all at once along the edge of the bay and harbor. 



"According to Captain Edwards, of Wood's HoU, a very accurate observer, they have no 

 spawn in them when in Vineyard Sound. This statement is corroborated by Captain Hinckley; 

 and Captain Hallett, of Hyannis, 'does not know where they spawn.' The only positive evidence 

 on this subject is that of Captain Pease, who states it as the general impression about Edgar- 

 town that they spawn about the last of July or the first of August. He has seen them when he 

 thought they were spawning on the sand, having caught them a short time uefore, full of spawn, 

 and finding them afterward for a time thin and weak. He thinks their spawning ground is on 

 the white sandy bottom to the eastward of Martha's Vineyard, toward Muskeeget. While not 

 discrediting the statement of Mr. Pease, it seems a little remarkable that so few persons on the 

 eastern coast have noticed the spawning in summer of the Bluefish ; and, although there may be 

 exceptions to the fact, it is not impossible that the spawning ground is in very early spring, or 

 even in winter, off New Jersey and Long Island or farther south. It is not impossible that, at a 



the meadows two feet deep, so that one can take a common fork and pitch them into a boat or throw thom on the 

 bank. In some places they lie in windrows on the meadows where the tide has taken them, so;they take large wood- 

 scows alongside and load them." 



1857. — "Bluefish were very plenty off our shores in the early part of autumn. They are great enemies to the 

 menhaden ; and for several days such a war raged that the beaches were strewn with dead fish, chiefly of the latter 

 species. Mr. Lewis, the historian, said that in two tides he picked up nine bushels and buried them in his garden for 

 manure. — Lkwis and Newhall, p. 452. History of Lynn., 



