280 Cavallas and Pampanos 
fish of all sizes, with rare exceptions, 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 bluefish consists very largely of individuals which have 
already passed a large percentage of the chances against their 
reaching maturity, many of them, indeed, having arrived at 
the period of spawning. To make the case more clear, let us 
realize for a moment the number of bluefish 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 bluefish from New Jersey to Monomoy during the 
season amounts to no less than one million individuals, aver- 
aging five or six pounds each. Those, however, who have 
seen the bluefish in his native waters and realized the immense 
numbers 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 occurring in the extent of our 
coasts referred to, even neglecting the smaller ones, which, 
perhaps, should also be taken into account. 
“An allowance of ten fish per day to each bluefish is not 
excessive, according to the testimony elicited from the fisher- 
men 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 bluefish on the New England 
coast is at least one hundred and twenty days, we have in 
round numbers twelve hundred million millions of fish devoured 
in the course of a season. Again, if each bluefish, 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, during the same period, a daily loss of twenty-five 
hundred million pounds, equal to three hundred thousand 
millions for the season. 
