212 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Mr. Reed, of Maine. As tlio gentleman from New York is (|notmg me, I will read the exact 
language I (j noted from someone else: 
At' Ibis time in June tbe lisli ii])pe,ar to sink out of siglit for two or three weeks; this occurring a few seasons a little 
earlier or later than at other tiine.s, owing probably to the varying temperature of the water. It i.s said they have gone 
down to spawn. 
Tliat is the testimony of Cajitain Collins. 
Mr. Hewitt. 1 thank the gentleman for giving that testimony. Captain Collins is a great expert, 
hnt he does not know what they go down for; nor do 1, nor does the gentleman from Mitiue. I do 
not know what they go down for; hnt this is certain, notwithstanding the fact that this work of 
destruction has been going on for the last lifieeu years when the purse-seiiie contrivance was lirst 
adopted, and for ten years and with the, same energy that it is now prosecuted and with the same 
results, the catch of mackerel has gone on, wdth slight variation, s, steadily increasing. It is true that 
we do not get the same quantity of No. 1 mackerel that we formerly caught, but those statistics are 
the statistics when the mackerel w'ere caught by the hook and line; and that was the point of my 
question to the gentleman I'rom New .lersey, whether w'hen his Jersey constituents go out to catch 
mackerel with hook and line, they do not get as good lish as ever. 
And that reminds me that all this talk about taking mackerel in the spawming season is simply 
ridiculous in view’^ of the facts. In the lirst place, it turns out as a curious fact in natural history that 
three-fourths of the lish caught in the spring fishing are male fish, and only one-fourth are female 
lish. Will some one undertake to explain by what provision of Divine Providence the female lish are 
preserved out of sight, not w itliin the range of these nets, while the male lish are principally taken ? 
And let me mention another thing as to the shad. A shad is not regarded as fit to eat except when it 
is in the spawning season, and what is true of the shad is true of the mackerel. The mackerel that 
have been brought in to New York this year, as certilied by Mr. Blackford, turn out to bo a very large, 
better, and a liner class of lish than ha\ e come there for the last few years. If I, like the gentleman 
from Maine, were to reason hoc propter hoc, I w'ould say the seine-lishing is steadily increasing 
and improving the value of the lish; they get better all the time, every year a little better than they 
were the year before. But I confess frankly I do not know anything about it. I only know the fact 
that w'o get mackerel, that w'e get them in increasing quantity, and that they are a lish essential to 
the supjiort not merely of my poo]de, but of the people ivhom ail of you represent on this lloor. 
Now this testimony w’hich I have cited agrees with the testimony of everybody who has carefully 
considered this subject. 
Mr. Blackford is one of the lish commissioners of the State of New York, and is also the assistant 
lish commissioner of the United States in charge of the oyster beds. Ho is a fish-dealer, a most 
remarkalile lish-dealer, an honor to his State and to his country, a man who devotes the profit of his 
great business (and he is the grealest lish-dealer in the world) to the iwopagatiou of food-fishes and the 
investigation of the laws which govern their growth and their j'ei'petuity. Mr. Blackford testified 
on the subject before the Senate committee, and in his testimony he said that he had begun (as all of 
us have begun) wdlh the idea that the mackerel fishery and all the ocean fisheries wmuld be injured 
unless provision w'as made for a close season. He says: 
Not being luuch ol' a writer or speaker, it was a matter of considerable labor d'or me, and I went to work to get 
together my fact.s from my own diaries that 1 keej) of the daily supplies of tlie markets, and of the prices and notes that I 
take of the large catches, in order to i>reparo tliis paper to be read : but wdieu I got my material all together, I found the 
facts were entirely opposite to the views wliich I had entertained, and the more I looked into the subject the more I became 
impressed that there ivas no necessity for legislation for tlio iirotection of any of the free-swimming ojicn-sea fishes. 
There is the conclusion of the most intelligent practical man on this subject in this country, who 
w’^eut into the investigation with his mind made up that inotection was necessary in order to preserve 
these fisheries from damage, but who came out of it satisfied that his former view was wrong, and 
testified before the Senate committee that in his judgment it was impossible for man to do any injury 
to the ocean fisheries. 
This same question has been up time and again in Great Britain. It has been the subject of 
royal commissions. The last commission that sat upon it wms headed by Professor Huxley. I hold 
in my hand a paper by that eminent scientific man in which he sums up the matter, and which is so 
interestiug that I shall read it at a greater length than I otherwise would. It was published in the 
Popular Science Monthly for August, 1881. In this paper Professor Huxley is speaking of the herring; 
but the habits of Ihe herring and of the mackerel are almost identical. There is, however, a slight 
difference in their mode of spawning. 
