82 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
A most important and interesting presentation is made in Table 7, which exhibits 
by States the quantities and values of fishery products taken by the principal forms 
of apparatus. Weirs, pound nets, and trap nets take the largest quantities of fish in 
Maine, but yield the most remunerative returns in Massachusetts, a circumstance due 
to the difference in the character of the fish in the two States. The catch in seines is 
greatest in Rhode Island, after which come Connecticut and Maine, but the value of 
seine-caught fish is much the greatest in Massachusetts. Gill nets take the most fish 
in Maine, but give the largest money returns in Massachusetts. In Connecticut both 
the catch and the value of products taken in fyke nets are greater than in any other 
State. Pots give larger results in Maine than in all the other States combined. 
Massachusetts easily leads in the products of the hand-line and trawl-line fisheries, 
showing an excess of nearly $2,500,000 over the aggregate results in all other New 
England States. The use of miscellaneous apparatus, such as guns, harpoons, dredges, 
tongs, rakes, dip nets, etc., yields the best results in Massachusetts, though Connecti- 
cut is only slightly behind. The catch of whales with harpoons is not considered, 
this being the reason for the apparent high rank of Connecticut. 
Considering the total output for each form of apparatus, it is found that, although 
the most primitive means of capture, lines took 27.70 per cent of the products and 
43.52 per cent of the value; while seines, which yielded nearly as large a percentage 
of products, viz, 26.73 per cent, took only 8.85 per cent of the value of products. This 
disparity in value is due to the fact that the most valuable food species are taken on 
lines, whereas the fish caught in seines are chiefly menhaden, which are sold at rel- 
atively low prices for manufacture into oil and fertilizer. 
The development of the pound-net, weir, and trap fishery has been quite remark- 
able in certain sections of New England since the abrogation of the fishery clauses of 
the Washington treaty. This has been, in a measure, due to the demand for bait 
caught on our own shores, and has led to the profitable prosecution of the pound-net 
fishery on the coasts of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, in particular. Barn- 
stable Bay and the region east of Portland, Maine, have become noted bait resorts 
during a large part of each year when herring, squid, and other bait species approach 
the coast. As will be seen by the tables exhibiting this branch of fishery, the increase 
in the number of these forms of apparatus has been very marked since 1880. 
A remarkable outcome of the pound-net fishery is the profitable utilization of cer- 
tain products for food purposes that heretofore have been accounted worthless or of 
little value. Among these may be mentioned the squid, the horse-mackerel or tunny, 
and the whiting or “ Old England hake.” It is only recently that the first two species 
have been considered of any value for food in our markets. The squid is now quite 
highly prized, and at times the demand is greater than the supply in the markets of 
the large cities. 
The horse mackerel constitutes a cheap, wholesome, and palatable food, and its cap- 
ture and utilization for this purpose are additionally important in view of the fact that 
it is one of the most predaceous species in American waters ; and, being of large size 
and generally numerous, it is exceedingly destructive to those species upon which it 
preys, such as the mackerel, herring, menhaden, etc. 
Although the whiting, as it comes from the water, is one of the best-flavored and 
most nutritious of our food-fishes, the difficulty of keeping it fresh and in good con- 
dition when iced has militated against its utilization to a large extent for market 
