376 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
to a net varies from 100 to 1,000 fish annually, 200 or 300 probably being the average. 
The monthly catch of one net in 1891 and two nets in 1892 was as follows : 
Months. 
1891. 
1892. 
June 
Pounds. 
823 
1 Pounds. 
1,122 
773 
364 
July 
September 
6 
October 
184 
2, 443 
Total 
1, 098 
The yield in 1891 in the one net referred to represented 147 fish, with an average 
weight of pounds each. 
Some years ago the reprehensible practice of killing sheepshead by means of 
dynamite exploded over sunken wrecks, to which the fish habitually resort, was not 
uncommon in certain of the bays on the outer shore of New Jersey. The writer saw 
33 fish destroyed at one discharge in Great Egg Harbor Bay. 
31. Stenotomus chrysops (Linnaeus). Porgy. 
Occurs on the shore in considerable numbers between April and July, and is 
caught in pound nets during that period. The largest quantities are taken in June; 
in July the fish begin to work off shore, going east, and in the latter part of the sum- 
mer and in fall only stragglers are taken. The average annual catch to a net is from 
1,000 to 2,000 pounds, valued at about 3 cents a pound. The fish weigh from Jto2 
pounds, the average being about 1 pound. 
The following note on the abundance of porgies in 1890 and 1891 has been com 
municated by Capt. 1). T. Church, of Tiverton, B. I.: 
During May, 1890, the largest crop of small scup ever seen on our coast appeared from Barnegat 
to Hyannis. At the time of their appearance it took 25 fish, hy actual count, to weigh a pound; 
when they left the coast their weight was one-fourth of a pound. On their return in the spring they 
were about the same size as when they left in the fall. This fall [1891] their weight is half a pound. 
Probably within a year or so there will he present on the coast the greatest body of scup ever known. 
When the small scup made their appearance in the spring near Seaconnet a large school of cod was 
with them. We found them gorged with small scup, one cod examined containing 17 fish. After the 
cod left squeteague took their place, and their destruction [of scup] was enormous, and it was going 
on from Sandy Hook to Hyannis. 
32. Cynoscion regalis (Bloch & Schneider). Weakfish. 
This is tbe most abundaut aud important fish taken in pound nets on the ocean 
front of New Jersey; next to the bluefish, it is the most valuable species captured on 
the coast of that State, and, considering the fisheries of the entire State, it is sur- 
passed in importance only by the shad and bluefish. 
According to many fishermen, the weakfish was more abundant in 1891 and 1892 
than for ten years previously. Notwithstanding the enormous quantities taken, it is 
not apparent that the supply is being reduced, and some hauls now made are fully as 
large as any in the history of the fishery. In Monmouth County, during one day in 
the second week in August, 1891, fully 100,000 pounds of weakfish were caught in one 
pound net, and 81,800 pounds were taken out and sold. On July 11, 1892, two other 
nets in the same county yielded 60,000 pounds at one lift, but adjacent nets took only 
small quantities. 
