STATE ICHTHYOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS.^ 



Bv Theodore Gill. 



The history of the ichthyology of Massachusetts has never been 

 written, and a sketch of such appeared to me to be the best and most 

 seasonable response I could make to the invitation to address the inves- 

 tigators and students assembled at the headquarters in Massachusetts 

 of what was affectionately known for a generation as the Fish Com- 

 mission, but has recently been renamed the Bureau of Fisheries. The 

 histor}^ is an interesting and a rather remarkable one. Of course, in 

 the time allotted for an address, only the salient features of a long his- 

 tory can be given, and many minor communications and even popular 

 works relating to the ichthyology of the region in cpiestion must remain 

 unnoticed. The room is requisite for a neglected subject. We are 

 often curious to know something about the personality of the men 

 whose work we consider and such information is generally difficult for 

 the scientific student to obtain. Of several of the old and departed 

 writers on the fishes of Massachusetts notices will be now given, and 

 when reference is next made to their writings, perhaps it may be done 

 with a new interest and better means of judging their work. 



The history of Massachusetts ichthyology begins earl}^ in the history 

 of the United States — earlier, even, than any settlement by English in 

 the state. Capt. John Smith, who acquired celebrity in connection 

 with a more southern province, having induced certain London mer- 

 chants to furnish him with two vessels for exploration of the New 

 England coast, in the spring of 1014 visited and made a sketch map of 

 part of the coast of territory granted to the Plymouth C bmpany. In 

 "A Description of New England", published in 1616, he enumerated 

 the fishes. Excluding the " whales, grampus, porkpisces,*" or porpoises, 

 and the shellfish, the names of sixteen were mentioned — "turbut, stur- 

 gion, cod, hake, haddock, cole, cusk, or small ling, shark, mackerrell, 



a An address delivered at Woods Hole, before the Marine Biological Laboratory, on the evening of 

 August 3, 1904; reprinted from Science, revised, and with many additional paragraphs and notes. 



The early history may be found given at greater length in the new edition of Goode's American 

 Fishes, edited by Gill and published by Dana Estes & Co., of Boston (1903). 



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