NATURAL HISTORY OF IMPORTANT FOOD-FISHES. 247 



along the coast *at the end of September or beginning of October. 

 (Game Fish of America, 1862, 159.) 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 efficient apparatus in 

 the way of fine meshed nets, 1 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 Hole, a very accurate ob- 

 server, they have no spawn in them when in Vineyard Sound. This 

 statement is corroborated by Captain Hinckley ; and Captain Hallett, of 

 Hyannis, (page 48,) "does not know where they spawn." The only 

 positive evidence on this subject is that of Captain Pease, (page 38,) who 

 states it as the general impression about Edgartown, 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 before, 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 re- 

 markable that so few persons on the eastern coast have noticed the 

 spawning in summer of the blue-fish ; and although there may be ex- 

 ceptions 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 suitable period after spawn- 

 ing the young, in obedience to their migratory instinct, many move north- 

 ward along.the coast, growing rapidly as they proceed. This explains 

 the almost sudden appearance of fish of five inches about Wood's Hole. 



We have the statement of Dr. Yarrow that vast schools of small 

 blue-fish were met with in Beaufort Harbor during the last week in 

 December, 1871. These were in company with small schools of young 

 menhaden and yellow-tailed shad, and were apparently working their 

 way toward the sea by the route of the inlet. When observed, they were 

 coming from the southward through the sound, moving very slowly, at 

 times nearly leaving it, and theu returning. The largest were about 4 

 inches in length, and others were much smaller ; and as many as twenty 

 schools were observed from the wharf at Fort Macon, each of them oc- 

 cupying an area of from 60 to 80 feet square, and apparently from 4 to 

 6 feet in depth. I would not be much surprised if these fish should 

 prove to have been spawned late in the year off the southern coast. 



The mode of taking these fish varies with the locality, the more pro- 

 ductive method being either with weirs, or pounds, or by means of the 

 gill-net. In Massachusetts Bay immense numbers are sometimes taken 

 in the brush-weirs, which are very common in that region. During the 

 night of the 14th of September, 1870, I happened to be anchored off 

 Billingsgate Shoal, where one weir took a school of blue-fish estimated at 

 20,000 in number, weighing probably six pounds each. Fifteen carts 

 were occupied the entire morning in hauling these fish up from the 

 beach. 



At Hyannis, Nantucket, and Edgartown they are taken principally 

 by the line, although a large number are caught about Nantucket in 

 gill-nets. In 1872, owing to the increasing scarcity, comparatively few 

 were taken at these places with the line, the supply being furnished 

 mainly by net. 



Farther west, in Vineyard Sound and in Buzzard's Bay, they are 

 taken principally in the pounds ; while still farther to the west and in 



