O EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Mr. Mact. The squeteague are four times as plenty now as I have 

 ever seen them before, and keep increasing. In 1830 we caught the first 

 blue-fish in Nantucket 5 but in 1831 my uncle caught a barrel which he 

 salted. They became plenty afterward, and continued so up to the year 

 of the plague that killed off all the Indians but two children. They all 

 disappeared that year. 



Mr. J. J. Curry, dealer in fish : 



The Spanish mackerel are caught in this vicinity. They are more 

 scarce this year than usual. The blue-fish run about as last year, but 

 larger. I have kept a fish-market here six years. I do not think the 

 blue-fish scarcer than they were six years ago. There was a time, six 

 years ago, when in August, for three days, we could not get any. I do 

 not know that there are any more traps used now than there were six 

 years ago. We get all our fish for market here in this neighborhood, 

 except halibut, round mackerel, and salmon ; these come from Boston. 

 Six years ago the price of Spanish mackerel was forty cents a pound ; 

 now they are worth a dollar a pound. Salmon are selling for fifty cents 

 a pound. I buy my fish from the pound-men, paying about fifty-five 

 cents a pound for Spanish mackerel. "Last year we had four times as 

 many Spanish mackerel as formerly. They were first caught here "four 

 years ago. We get eight cents a pound for blue-fish ; never sell them 

 for less than that. Flat-fish we can hardly give away in this market. 

 We get eight cents a pound for weak-fish, (squeteague.) We do not sell 

 many round mackerel ; we cannot get more than ten or twelve cents a 

 pound for them fresh, and, when salted, they sell for eighteen cents 

 Scup bring five cents apiece on an average ; not more than six or eight 

 cents a pound. We get no scup scarcely. 



Samuel Albro, dealer in fish : 



We get forty cents a pound for sheep's-head; they are taken in the 

 West Bay. We get five cents a pound for fiat-fish, (flounders ;) take 

 anything we can get for them ; they are not much vised here. We get 

 half a dollar a pound for salmon. There is one kind of fiat-fish, that we 

 call pucker-mouth, that is better than the other kind. For lobsters we 

 get five cents a pound. I think blue-fish are more plenty than last year. 

 Tautog are scarce. George Crabb* makes five dollars a day catching tautog 

 with a hook and line the year round. He will average a hundred pounds a 

 day. In the spring our market would not be as well supplied with fish if it 

 were not for the pounds, because they can catch them in pounds before 

 they will bite the hook. Down at Gooseberry Island they took in one 

 pound as many as 10,000 barrels of small scup, so small that they did 

 not want them; the net was so full that they could not haul it, and had 

 to catch hold of the bottom of it and tip them out. They were spawned 

 south. They never saw such a lot of young scup here before. It was 

 from the 14th to the 18th of May that they caught so many young scup. 

 The big ones came along about from the 1st to the 10th of May. 



Francis Brinley, esq., chairman of the Commission on fisheries of 

 Rhode Island : 



We had many meetings of the Commission in different parts of the 

 State to make inquiries, and found the people generally ready to answer 

 them, though some hesitated. As a general thing, the pound or trap 

 men here would not attend the meetings, although invited through the 

 notices in the newspapers. Mr. Stevens did not appear before the Com- 



* See George Crabb's testimony, p. 30, to the contrary. 



