200 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
following day. Punta Gorda is situated near the head of Charlotte 
Harbor Bay, at the mouth of Pease Creek, about 25 miles from the Gulf. 
The fish-houses are all built on the South Florida Bail way wharf, about 
2 miles from the town, where most of the fishermen make their head- 
quarters. The fishing-camps are scattered from Punta Gorda to Boca 
Grande pass. Mullet have only been caught in considerable quantities 
in the upper part of the bay since the opening of the South Florida 
Eailroad to this point, about two years ago, though two large ranches 
for supplying the Havana market with salt mullet have been in opera- 
tion at the passes for eight or ten years. The dealers here have shipped 
this season about 1,700,000 pounds, or 800,000 mullet, and could have 
shipped about double as much if the shipping facilities had been better. 
The dealers, as a rule, own their boats } nets, etc., and pay the men from 
1 to cents apiece for the fish. When I arrived they were catching 
mullet in large quantities, full-roed and nearly ripe, and they told me 
that the fish would begin to spawn about the 20th. Men who have 
fished and bought fish all along the coast say that mullet are much 
more abundant here than anywhere else on the Gulf coast. The supply 
at Cedar Keys and Tampa, which have been up to this time the chief 
shipping points, having given out, they are now supplied from Suwanee 
Biver and Sarasota Bay, which necessitates carrying the fish 30 or 40 
miles before they are packed for shipment. Most of the men here be- 
lieve that mullet go to fresh or brackish water to spawn ; and one man 
said that he had often seen schools of spent fish coming down out of 
fresh water, and that fishermen always located their camps at the mouth 
of fresh-water rivers in preference to salt, knowing that the fish had to 
go there to spawn. All of my observations and the testimony of every 
man on the Atlantic coast opposed this theory ; and after staying there 
three weeks and visiting the camps and ranches, I could find nothing 
to substantiate it. On the 20th I left Punta Gorda on a sloop, and 
after visiting the fishing camps went on to the ranches. 
I first visited the Spanish ranch on Cayo Costa Island, near Boca 
Grande pass. The force consisted of 28 men to work the seine and 
cure the fish and 6 men to run the smack, all under Captain Tweno, 
a Spaniard. All of the fish caught are salted, and the roe dried in the 
sun for shipment to Cuba, where the price is about 4£ cents per pound 
for the fish and 10 cents for the roes. 
The day I arrived at the Spanish ranch I saw several hundred “ ga- 
lam boties” caught, and every day afterwards large numbers were 
brought into the ranches ; but they were considered very inferior for 
salting purposes. 
The captain, who has fished here for eight years, informed me that 
“galam boties” were always caught either coming in at the pass or 
working up the bay, but never going out, though he has seen them 
outside in 15 fathoms of water. The fishing season here lasts from Sep- 
tember 15 to January 15. There seems to be no diminution in the sup- 
