142 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. 17, 1894. 



along I found larger fish. On July 2 I arrived at my home 

 in Maine and onr coast was literally swarming with the 

 overgrown fish. Up to that time it was considered", although 

 there was no evidence to prove it, that these fish spawned 

 off-shore. I believe they do, now. It was my conclusion 

 and is so in my report, that these fish spawned in the fall 

 after they go down by the Capes of Delaware and Virginia 

 in the off-shore waters adjacent to the Southern coast. Two 

 years after that, by some unknown cause, the spawn of the. 

 menhaden was retarded. The fish that went in the fall 

 came back in the spring with the spawn in them. This is a 

 conundrum that no man has been able to solve. 



Col. McDonald said: "I am going to put my men on in 

 the spring and I am going to try and settle that, question. " 

 He is in doubt and every man is iu doubt. The fish that 

 have spawned have been seen upon this coast, the spawn 

 has been retarded. I believe that the menhaden do spawn 

 on the off-shore adjacent to the Southern coast and that the. 

 theory which is proved to be established that they are an 

 inshore spawner is not based upon facts. It is the excep- 

 tion and not the rule. It has been said that the whole ques- 

 tion should be referred to a Commission. I believe that is 

 wise. It has been said that the U. S. Commission is the 

 proper authority. I beg to differ. While no man has a 

 greater respect for the U. S. Commission than I have for 

 every member of it, and I am inclined to think that every 

 man on the Commission, especially those who investigated 

 the waters of the Delaware coast, are fine men, yet they lack 

 practicability. They will go on our coast from one end to 

 the other but they will not get at the facts. We do not want 

 to rest this important question on what information a few 

 gentlemen may get that have no great interest in it and are 

 not practical men, and are not able to judge whether the 

 answers to their questions are right or wrong. This is an 

 important question which interests every man, woman and 

 child of this country. In it lies the food supply of future 

 generations. 



I said in the beginning- that the star of peace has arisen. I 

 believe that this meetiug has been conducive to more benefit 

 than anything that has ever taken place. I have attended 

 more meetings perhaps than any man in this room, and it 

 has been my lifelong study. I believe if we appoint a com- 

 mission of men who will attend to it and give it an impartial 

 investigation, that the facts, the truths, will come out, and 

 whatever is right will be done. I believe the gentlemen wiio 

 called us here together are perfectly fair. They have used us 

 handsomely. I feel under great obligations. 1 believe that 

 the next time we meet that they should be the guests and we 

 should be the entertainers. I believe we should keep this up 

 and come here and listen to reports, and we all will be greatly 

 helped and benefitted. 



The following resolution wasoffered by Edward P. Doyle, 

 of New York: 



RSsclved, That the chairman of the convention appoint a 

 committee of one from each State to prepare the records of 

 this meeting for publication. 



George ST. Bliss, Rhode Island— In 1886 I was elected to 

 the Legislature of Rhode Island for the last time, having beeD 

 elected in all eight times a member of that body, and I was 

 against the net fishermen. I was ready to vote to abolish all 

 nets and pounds, everything except seines. The only 

 thing I was willing to allow was that they should shoot out 

 seines from the shore and catch fish as they used to do when 

 I was a boy. I have helped haul fish seines and seen very 

 large hauls of fish caught in them, but observation and time 

 has changed me, and I have seen some new light, as Paul did 

 on his way to Damascus. And although I have had no 

 special connection with fishermen, except as a Commissioner 

 of Shell Fisheries for ten years in the State of Rhode Island 

 and as a member of the Legislature to investigate fisheries 

 (my principal fisheries having been to take every opportunity 

 to go fishing), still I have all my life been interested in them 

 and am trying to learn something about it. 



It seems that even a man of the experience and research of 

 our friend. Col. McDonald, has just discovered that he was 

 entirely wrong a few years ago. He thought the menhaden 

 fish did not spawn at all on this coast, and now he thinks 

 they do. I should judge from the testimony that there is a 

 little trouble on both sides, that there are a few fish that come 

 back in the spring not having deposited their spawn in the 

 southern waters, and who do spawn in our in-shore waters, 

 and so those few fish that spawn give color to his conclusions 

 now. 



If I had known exactly what was to come out here to-day, 

 I would have been better prepared with documents to give 

 exact dates, but somewhere in 1S63 or 1864 1 was a member of 

 a committee appointed by the Legislature of Rhode. Island 

 to investigate the pound nets of the State and all the means 

 of taking scup and other fish, and we went to every part of 

 the State of Rhode Island where such nets were maintained 

 — in Narragansett Bay and a large number in the outside, 

 along the sea coast — and the conclusion we arrived at that 

 time was a divided one. Two members of the committee- 

 there being three — presented a report to the Legislature ad- 

 vocating the entire abolition of all pound nets and traps. I 

 made a minority report, advocating the abolition of all the 

 traps in the bay north of a certain point a few miles north of 

 the ocean. At that time I thought it was a proper position 

 to take. The Legislature took no action whatever on either 

 report. If the committee had made a uniform report, pos- 

 sibly there would have been some action, but it never came 

 to a vote. I thought then, as many gentlemen think now, 

 that the traps in the bay interfered with the spawning offish 

 and consequently that if we could take away these standing 

 traps, which stood in the way of the fish that went in the 

 bay, they would have an opportunity to spawn, and I reasoned 

 that the trap fishermen, who set their traps at the mouth of 

 the bay, would get a large increase of fish from that change 

 and it would be really for the benefit of the entire population. 



Last winter a friend of mine who was in the Legislature 

 enlisted me to appear before a committee of the Legislature, 

 to inquire into the abolition of the traps, except along the 

 ocean coast where they catch scup in the spring of the year, 

 to advocate the passage of a law which would prohibit traps 

 from November to June or July 1, on the same theory that 

 this would give the fish a chance to spawn before the traps 

 were set, and consequently the trap fisherman would catch, 

 during the season, a larger number of fish than they w r ould 

 if the traps were standing during the usual period. We 

 were met with opposition — something I did not expect, from 

 the fact that these fishermen set their nets the year round 

 and that they would thereby be deprived of every oppor 

 tunity to catch shad and herring; the result was, no action 

 was taken then. I have now reached the condition where I 

 am in search of testimony and I think that I fairly repre- 

 sent two members of the Commission— Root and Morton — 

 who have asked me to appear here for them, in stating that 

 they wish further information before being sure what legis- 

 lation to recommend. Upon one thing I think we may all 

 be said to be agreed. If any method can be devised for al- 

 lowing the fish better opportunities for spawning, so that it 

 will increase in the future the annual supply, certainly every 

 man here would tavor it. The only question is whether any 

 legislation which we can adopt will secure that object. That 

 is the only question. 



There is no doubt that in certain localities the fishing has 

 decreased, that certain fish which we once found abundant 

 are now very rarely found or not at all. At the same time, 

 it is very evident from the testimony here that in other 

 localities where the fish were once scarce they are very 

 numerous. 



Within my own recollection weakfish were caught rarely, 

 if at all, in Narragansett Bay, and last summer the waters 

 were full of them, although I have not heard of 100 being 



ing weakfish with hook and line in Narragansett Bay. 

 There are very few who can catch them, but we know the 

 waters are full of them. Perhaps we do not use the right 

 bait. I presume if we got the right bait perhaps we might 

 •catch them. I never caught but one in my life. Still, the 

 traps were full, so full that the fish caught could not be 

 marketed. They are allowed to come in and go out of the 

 traps, because the market would not take them. At the 

 same time in other parts of the country there were very 

 few; they were gone. 



There are certain laws which govern the movements of 

 ocean fishes which we do not understand, and there was a 

 very marked instance of it here a few years ago when the 

 tilefish were discovered off our coast at a point where neither 

 purse seines nor traps nor pound nets could interfere with the 

 development of or With the supply of those fish, and we had 

 hardly been able to discover them and have time to congratu- 

 late ourselves upon the addition of a new and valuable 

 resource, when the news came that the waters were full of 

 dead fish. I believe they have recently been rediscovered, 

 and possibly we may be able to get a supply of food fish from 

 them in the future. No one has given any special reason for 

 their disappearance. There has been a conjecture that the 

 temperature of the water might have been too cold for them 

 during that season, and led to their being chilled and to 

 their death, but no one knows with any certainty what 

 caused those fish to make such an immediate disappearance. 



It seems to me we are not yet in possession of the ne- 

 cessary evidence to lead us to formulate wise laws with 

 reference to this matter. We do know that the fishes 

 that go into the streams, like the salmon, the shad and her- 

 ring, can be very easily exterminated by the pollution of the 

 water, by the erection of dams that prevent their passing to 

 the spawning grounds, or by putting nets across the streams, 

 In Rhode Island the Fish Commissioners put in a large 

 supply of shad fry, and about three years after we had a 

 large supply of fish. One stream that has not been polluted 

 has been very successful in the supply of shad. Col. McDou 

 aid, in his argument of yesterday treated the matter of th< 

 reproduction of fish from the point of the protection of crops, 

 uoon land, and it seems to me that there was no comparison 

 between the two crops. -In the crop upon the land w^e know 

 that a certain quantity is necessary for seed, and we are able 

 to watch that crop all through its development. Every 

 month the Agricultural Bureau of the United States gives 

 us the condition of the crops, gives us the influences which 

 are favorable to or injuring it, and we can figure with almost 

 absolute certainty about the success of the year in which the 

 crop will be. We know the amount of seed and we know 

 the amount of the crop, and although there may be good 

 years and bad years, the general average is about the same, 

 it is not so with fish. We do not know the quantity of seed, 

 we do not know the condition of the crop, the influences 

 which are favoring it or injuring it, and we do not know 

 what the harvest will be. Twice within my recollection 

 scup have been plentiful around the city of Providence and 

 for ten years afterward they were not there. 



The scup were so plentiful last year that the fishermen 

 hauled thousands of fish for market. Why this has been so 

 I cannot tell. We cannot see any reason. Possibly t here is 

 a different temperature of water. We certainly cannot ac- 

 count for these sudden floods of fish and these sudden scarci 

 ties. The table which was shown here yesterday gave the 

 fluctuations of mackerel and specified instances of fish be- 

 coming plentiful and shortly disappearing, and then again 

 becoming plentiful. 



I do not think it safe to legislate until we have further 

 facts, and facts upon which there is no dispute. I am very 

 glad that this conference was called. I promised rashly to 

 come here, regretted it very much, and would have excused 

 myself could I have done so, but I am glad I was not per- 

 mitted to escape and that I am here. I have learned much, 

 and I trust I will have an opportunity to learn more when I 

 read the papers which have been read here. I trust the de- 

 velopment of facts, and the bringing out of facts, will pro- 

 duce a great deal of good, and that this conference will have 

 proven to be a noteworthy one. 



Mr. J. M. K. SOUTHWICK (Rhode Island)— I do not under- 

 stand what is said about anadromous fishes. It is generally 

 understood that the anadromous fishes are the salmon, shad", 

 alewife, etc , and that the distinction between them and 

 other migratory fishes is that they go to the headwaters of 

 streams to spawn, while the other fish, like the weakfish, go 

 only to the bays or estuaries. The scup never goes into the 

 freshwater, Once in a while a fish gets separated from the 

 maiu school and scattered, and in that way they get into 

 places where they do not want to go; and I think iu that way 

 spawn is sometimes developed in places where it is not the 

 natural spawning ground, and a few fish spawning under 

 favorable circumstances would make quite a showing of 

 spawn and young fry. 



Mr. Roosevelt — Are you at all sure where striped bass 

 spawn ? 



Mr. Southwick — No, I am not sure. During one season 

 in Rhode Island, after the usual catch of the great body of 

 the school of scup, an unaccountable body of young fish 

 were seen along the edge of the shores. The waters were full 

 of them. The seines were full. They would pass through 

 the meshes of the nets, and it was a phenomenon before un- 

 known to the fishermen. They did not know how to account 

 for it. 1 1 think they were very young. Those fish traveled 

 long distances, and it did not follow that because the young 

 fish were found at Narragansett Bay that they had spawned 

 at Narragansett Bay. Do not believe they did. Never said 

 they did. It seems to me that the great masses of scup came 

 into our bay. If they all came into our bay to spawn in a 

 mass, previous to going to the upper waters of the bay, they 

 would be seen there. They never were seen or observed in 

 large masses in that way before the traps were in use, nor 

 have they been seen since. They sometimes go up the Bay 

 as far as Providence, or as far as the salt water, but never in 

 the large schools. It is quite an important matter to discover 

 and to know whether the fish are auadromous, whether they 

 spawn in fresh water or salt. If the fish spawn in the oceau, 

 we cannot control them in the shallow waters or in the bay. 

 If they spawn in the bays we can. What man can do may 

 have some benefit on them. Another thing will be observed 



which will give confirmation to this theory, if you will call 

 it a theory, and that is that where there has been a reduc- 

 tion it has been among anadromous fishes. The salmon have 

 almost or quite disappeared from our waters. If they ever 

 were plentiful, they might have been the weakfish, so called. 

 At any rate, there is no salmon in the Rhode Island waters 

 to speak of. The shad are very scarce also. There is no 

 quantity of shad. The river herring have maintained their 

 numbers better than any of the other fish, but they are not 

 so plentiful as they used to be. Fishermen tell me that they 

 held their own for the last number of years. 



The other fish that I have considered as anadromous is 

 the striped bass. It is one of the most valuable fishes that 

 we have with us. It is the fish that entices the sporting man, 

 and in that connection I wish to say, for myself, that 1 think 

 the sporting interest is one that should be fostered and en- 

 couraged. It is the right and privilege of every man. It 

 affords relaxation for every business man and he ought to 

 have that piivilege and should be encouraged and every 

 means adopted and permitted to continue It. But the ques- 

 tion as to the striped bass. They have really decreased in 

 the last 25 years. I commenced the study of this question 

 about 25 years ago, or a little less than that, a little before 

 the investigation of Mr. Spencer P. Baird, and when he came 

 to Newport on the investigation of fish, we opened a corre- 

 spondence that continued for a number of years on the fish 

 question. At that time I stated to Prof. Baird that I thought 

 taken with hook and line. We are not successful in catch- 1 there had been no diminution of the sea bass. During the 



first summer he was there, there was a species of striped bass 

 that came in to our harbor which we caught and compared with 

 those caught at a former time, but since that time there has 

 been a diminution of bass. They are not so plentiful on our 

 coast. The last year has been a very poor season. How have 

 these fish been diminished? They are not caught in large 

 quantities by netting in our waters, and never were. The 

 largest quantity that has ever been caught were caught with 

 the shore seine. Take them in bulk and weigh them, and it 

 is a much larger quantity than ever w as caught in any pound 

 or trap, and the quantities caught in the trap since are very 

 small and constitute a smaller species of bass. They are 

 caught during the spring months. The large catch of the 

 trap-seine of fi sh generally is during the month of May. Per- 

 haps seven-eighths of all the catch is during that month. 

 You will see by our report, where we give the catch for each 

 month, the vast increase of shipments during that month, 

 which comprises more largely scup than any other fish.' 

 During the last year there was a large shipment of sque- 

 teague. 



There is another question I wish to speak of, and that is 

 about the fluctuation of fish. Mr. Bliss, who preceded me 

 spoke to you about them, but I have had occasion to inquire 

 into the history of the fishes of our State, and I learned that 

 in 1794, a scup was caught and nailed up on the side of a 

 hotel as a new specimen, never before kuown. Never knew 

 what it was! It had been absent from the water so long. A 

 few years ago, my father, who was living then /remembered 

 that the fish were very scarce and I recall his mentioning the 

 fishes of the earliest part of the century and said he once 

 went fishing and got a bluefish. Of course, the mackerel as 

 they were known then, was the only one he caught. It was 

 rare at that time. Where these bluefish went to no one 

 knows; aud what causes the flucutation of these fish? It is 

 an interesting question and certainly one that is appertain- 

 ing to this subject before us. If these fluctuations occurred 

 before netting, it does not necessarily follow that they were 

 due to netting. Netting may change it, or it may not. 



In the case of the bullseye mackerel— they have been absent 

 from our waters and again come in. Some thirty-five years 

 ago, they were very abundant in these waters of Rhode 

 Island. They disappeared about thirty years ago and were 

 not seen here until 1882, when they were abundant again. 



Mr. Caleb C. HAILEY said: As there have been some 

 remarks implying that there might be a combination 

 among the fish dealers to keep the prices of fish high I wish 

 to repudiate anything of that kind. Nothing whatever of 

 the kiud exists 

 Mr. C. F. Chamberlay^e of Massachusetts: 

 I think, with all dt-ference to the feelings of Capt. Church 

 that the consideration of a remedy for the scarcity of fish 

 without deciding that there is such a scarcity, would be a 

 valuable action of this meetiug. Various remedies have been 

 suggested. Among them is that of regulating the size of the 

 mesh, or limiting the kinds of fish or the amount of fish for 

 which the net may be used. We have found in Buzzards 

 Bay in our practical experience, that any such limitation is 

 absolutely without value. If netting is permitted in certain 

 waters for any purpose, it is permitted for all purposes. We 

 have no such money or machinery at our disposition, and no 

 such power of enforcing such regulations by patrol boats or 

 otherwise as would make them effective. No officer would 

 have dared to board a vessel which may be legally fishing 

 For example, under the law of 1865, in Buzzards Bay people 

 were allowed to seine for bluefish, seining being forbidden 

 for other fish. Everybody who owned a net was invariably 

 found to be fishing for bluefish; it was definitely found im- 

 possible to enforce it, and the prohibition was made general 

 forbidding all seining. 



It has also been found practically impossible to enforce any 

 regulations prescribing a certain number of days in each 

 week during which a pound or other device shall not be op- 

 erated. We have had laws since 1880 prescribing that from 

 6 o'clock Saturday A. M. until 6 o'clock Sunday evening 

 pounds should not be used; the pocket should be drawn or 

 some provision made by which the net shall not be operated 

 It has been found that any such restrictions are an absolutely 

 dead letter. They cannot, be enforced, they are not enforced 

 aud the protection so afforded is utterly illusive. These laws 

 do not enforce themselves and we do not have such patrol 

 vessels as could be effective iu the matter. 



The only way we can preserve fish is to protect the period 

 of reproduction, and study the ways in which reproduction 

 takes place. Intelligent action cannot be under a single 

 general ironclad regulation, but by our discriminating laws 

 there should be prescribed a fixed period during which cer- 

 tain mechanical devices should not be employad, and it 

 should be provided that in certain waters constituting 

 spawning grounds they should not be employed at all. The 

 use of nets in spawning grounds has a peculiarly injurious 

 effect to all the interests represented here, and the use of 

 nets during the whole of the spawning season may be such 

 as to be materially curtailed with advantage to all inter- 

 ested. 



There is only one other suggestion I venture to make as the 

 result of considerable investigation into the subject, and that 

 is that the appointment of a, commission for devising reme- 

 dies for the growing scarcity of food fishes is not a course 

 from which any good will result. We have had just such a 

 Commission for twenty years at Washington, and it has done 

 little in that line. 



The Fish Commission of the United States was established 

 in 1871 in response to a suegestion by Mr. Spencer F. Baird 

 who was connected with the Smithsonian Institute at Wash- 

 ington. He called attention to the alarming decrease in the 

 coast fisheries both in Buzzards Bay aud Vineyard Sound 

 and suggested to Mr. Henry L. Dawes, then a member of the 

 House, and subsequently a Senator from Massachusetts, that 

 a Commission be appoiated for the investigation of precisely 

 that subject. His suggestion was adopted, and the Commis- 

 sion has now been in existence for a period of twenty-two 

 years for the purpose. It has made absolutely no recom- 

 mendations for protective legislation. The odIv legislation 

 for fish protection which has passed Congress was the Act of 

 1887, prescribing a close season for mackerel, by enacting 

 that during certain periods of the year no mackerel should 

 be imported iuto the United States. It was a regulation of 

 commerce and not an attempt to regulate the coast fisheries 

 of the United States. That legislation of Congress was abso- 

 lutely opposed by the agents of the Commission, who came 

 forward in large numbers, Mr. J. W. Collins appearing 

 prominently among them, and said that nothing was known 

 in regard to the habits or catch of the mackerel, and it was 

 necessary to catch them and all other fish at all times, 

 wherever possible, for if not they would be lost and do 

 nobody any good. 



Under circumstances like these, there having been a body 

 established for twenty-two years for this precise purpose, 

 operating entirely free, as may be supposed, from any per- 

 sonal influences, with abundant funds at its command and 

 especial opportunities for observation, which has been able 

 to discover absolutely nothing, it hardly seems worth while 

 to appoint another Commission, with the facts which are at 

 our disposal for an investigation of this matter by those who 

 are interested in the local supply of food fish, and charged by 

 the States with the duty of protecting special waters in their 

 jurisdiction. 



A single instance I will trouble you with, as to how little 

 this Fish Commission has been able to decide or discover in 

 its twenty years of existence. Col. McDonald, at this meet- 

 iug, made the first definite statement, so far as has been 

 known to me, of where menhaden spawn. That was an era 

 making paper. Prior to that time, the result of his Com- 

 mission was absolutely zero. There has been no fish that 

 has received in its investigation such a large portion of the 



