REGULATION OF THE SEA-FISHERIES BY LAW 115 



peared wholly, and, toward the end of the last century, were not known 

 in our waters. About 1794 they reappeared, and became abundant. In 

 1864 they decreased very much, and are at present comparatively scarce. 

 If now the blue -fish are the cause of scarcity, there ought to be some 

 correspondence in their dates of appearance and of disappearance. They 

 were plenty near Nantucket from 1059 to 1764, when they suddenly and 

 totally disappeared, to reappear in 1830. Slow it would seem that scup 

 did not reappear till thirty years after the blue-fish went away, to wit, 

 in 1794, and when the blue-fish came back in 1630, they found scup 

 abundant, and lived side by side with them for thirty years, before the 

 latter began decidedly to decrease. It is hardly in accordance with 

 what is seen in nature, to suppose that a cause- so active would take so 

 long to act, or that, when it ceased to act, so long a time would be 

 needed to restore the original state of things. And now,' in the midst 

 of this theorizing and seeking for evidence, rises a phenomenon which 

 puzzles both parties to the dispute. About the 1st of June of this year 

 (1871) those trappers at Saugkonnet Point, who had kept their netting 

 down until that time, were astounded to find their traps clogged with 

 myriads of " dollar-soup," little fish about the" size of a Spanish dollar. 

 They were tipped out of the bowls by hundreds of barrelsful. This 

 swarm struck first at Saugkonnet, then at Beaver Tail ; and thence appa- 

 rently it slowly worked up the bay, so that in July these little scup were 

 schooling round the wharves of Greenwich and Providence. In August 

 they were still among the shallows, and were plentiful in the more east- 

 ern waters, at the extreme head of Buzzard's Bay, and in the neighbor- 

 hood of Hyannis. 



The weir-owner at Wood's Hole had had his nets established for seven 

 seasons, but had never before witnessed this spectacle ; and the same 

 sort of evidence was given by other weir men. Benjamin Tallman, in 

 his testimony, already cited, speaks of a large quantity of such little scup 

 taken by a seine in 1S64 ; and of another considerable batch brought up 

 from deep water in a purse-seine, about 1855. It is to be observed that 

 this invasion is nothing but an abundant " late run " of yearling fish, 

 coming in its due season. The army of scup advancing to its spawning- 

 grounds in May is preceded by a few skirmishers, and is in two or three 

 divisions, of which the first is usually the most numerous, and contains 

 the oldest fish ; at an interval of perhaps two weeks there follows the 

 second, and then the third, which is usually fewer in numbers and of 

 smaller individuals. Sometimes, and in some places, the great and the 

 smaller scup come mixed together, and the " runs" are not well defined. 

 As with most schooling fishes, the young scup doubtless come last; and 

 the phenomenon of this year's run had two peculiarities ; first, it is more 

 abundant by many hundred-fold than anything that has been seen since 

 a dozen or fifteen years ago, when all the shallows, in midsummer, were 

 full of these little yearlings ; second, instead of following the deep chan- 

 nels at the mouth of the bay, the swarm struck directly to the coast on 

 entering, and fell into the traps and weirs which chiefly are there 

 set. This last is, to be sure, an hypothesis, but will be useful as a 

 guide to future investigation. Mr. Luce, in his testimony, stated that 

 the big scup coasted the shore of the Vineyard, while the smaller ones 

 moved outside, in deeper water. In other words, the spawning fish 

 sought their grounds, while those that spawned later, or that were too 

 young to spawn at all, kept in the offing. The yearlings (assuming that 

 they do not carry spawn) would come in and spread over the warm shal- 

 lows simply to seek food ; and this, also, the old fish do after they have 

 cast their spawn 5 only they spread out in deeper water, where 



