26 
AMERICAN FISHES . 
next haul we caught 13,000 pounds more, or 50,000 pounds altogether 
within six hours. This was at the Black Walnut Point fishery. At my 
Avoca Beach fishery a haul was made in 1844, which was supposed to 
amount to 100,000 pounds, but this was not accurately counted. Many 
of the individual fish weighed 95 pounds.” A Hessian officer, stationed at 
New York during the Revolutionary war, recorded that great quantities 
were at that time sold in the markets. In the year ending March, 1879, 
over 800,000 pounds of bass were sold in New York, the greatest number 
being recorded for Novemoer. 
The Baltimore Gazette, in May, 1834 had this item: “Some fishermen 
at Carpenters Point took a single haul, upwards of 800 rock fish of the 
largest size we ever saw. Some of them weighed upwards of 100 pounds, 
and the most of them averaged from 50 to 100 pounds.” 
The annual consumption of this fish in the United States is estimated at 
not less than 200,000 pounds. 
I have found no very reliable evidence to show that the species is de¬ 
creasing in numbers. They are not taken by unfair means, nor captured 
by wholesale upon the spawning beds or in narrow waters. The citizens 
of New York a century and a quarter ago were apparently more concerned 
about it than at present, for in 1758 they passed a law prohibiting their 
sale during the winter months, on account of the “great decrease of that 
kind of fish. ’ ’ An offender was to be fined forty shillings and forfeit his fish, 
and if he were a negro, mulatto or Indian slave, to be punished at the 
whipping post, unless his fine were paid by his master or mistress. 
The European Bass is probably quite as abundant on the west coast of 
Spain and Portugal as anywhere within its range. 
Like other representatives of the perch family not exclusively marine 
in habit, the Striped Bass are resident in our waters throughout the year. 
They appear to avoid a temperature higher than 65° or 70°, and are not 
sensitive to cold, but their movements are not related to the changes of 
the seasons, and there is no evidence that they seek to avoid the approach 
of winter by southward migration like bluefish and Spanish mackerel, or 
by moving out into the temperate strata of mid-ocean, like shad, salmon, 
menhaden, and mackerel. Nor is it probable that they voluntarily enter 
upon a state of torpidity in winter, as some writers have supposed. Sev¬ 
eral authorities state that they go into fresh water streams in winter for shel¬ 
ter, and De Kay’s opinion was that, entering bays and ponds, they embed 
themselves in the mud. We know, however, that hibernation of this kind 
is rarely voluntary; as a rule, fish retreat, with a falling temperature, into 
