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"The influence of thunder-storms was equally seen as in former years. If there is a thunder-storm of some magnitude extending over a large portion of Scotland, good takes may be made on that day; but on the following day few, if any, fish are caught over that part of the coast unless at the extreme verge of a deep part of the sea, as if the fish were retreating thither.

"Owing to the shortness of the time over which the inquiry has extended, the committee wish these results to be considered only as provisional. The results are, however, of the greatest value,'not merely as indicating the lines of inquiry to be followed in further carrying on this large investigation, but also as indicating, in some cases not obscurely, the nature of the results which will ultimately be established-results which, since they lead directly to a knowledge of the localization of the herring, will serve as a guide to the fishermen where to set their nets with the highest probability of success."

The influence of the tides on the menhaden.

98. There has been no decided relation observed between the movements of the schools and of the tide.

Following the coast in its northward trend they crowd into the bays and sounds, and breaking up into smaller schools the detachments find their way into the shallows. In outside waters they do not appear to be affected by tides, and when they are migrating they seem independent of its influence. Mr. Dudley states that they often rise to the surface when the tide changes near the middle of the day. This is doubtless in waters near the shore, where the change of tide would be accompanied by some slight change of temperature. Mr. Simpson feels certain that more enter the inlets of North Carolina on the ebb than on the flood. It seems to be true, however, that throughout their halt during the summer, many schools drift lazily with the tide into the bays and creeks, coming in with the flood-tide, going out with the ebbtide. In Southern waters they appear to hug the shore as closely as they can, and at high water thus gain access to waters too shallow for them at any other time.

15.-ALLEGED CHANGES IN HAUNTS AND HABITS.

The alleged changes of habit caused by the fisheries.

99. Many of the remarks in the preceding chapter are applicable to the menhaden only when they are left to enjoy their favorite haunts undisturbed. On the coast of Maine their habits are said, temporarily at least, to be greatly modified through the influence of man. They no longer hug the shores, but are found many miles out at sea, where they are followed by the fishing-vessels. The introduction of steamers into the fisheries is an evidence of this change of habit, and indeed the almost unanimous testimony of the Maine fishermen, from whom letters

have been received, is fish farther out to sea.

that the use of nets and seines tends to scare the The purse-nets are set generally at a distance

of from five to twenty-five miles from land.

Off Penobscot Bay menhaden are frequently caught by Brooklin fishermen outside of Isle au Haut and Great Duck Island.

According to Mr. W. H. Sargent the fish are much less numerous in the creeks, coves, inlets, and rivers, though outside no decrease is perceptible.

Capt. William S. Sartell, keeper of Pemaquid Point Light, writes: "The menbaden come regularly every summer into the bays, but the seining draws them off out of sight of land so that the fishermen here can't get bait to put on their hooks. They get some fish in their nets on Sundays when the seines are laid by."

Mr. Babson writes: "Since they have been taken in large quantities. for their oil, they have gradually avoided the bays, creeks, harbors, and rivers to which they once resorted in immense numbers, and are now principally taken from one to ten, miles from the shore. (Some of the fishermen maintain that since the advent of the bluefish, some twenty years ago, the pogies have sought deeper water for their own safety, while others maintain that the bluefish drive the pogies into shoal water; both statements are doubtless at times true.)"

Mr. Kenniston states that the fish are now farther off shore than in former years, and in this he is confirmed by Mr. Phillips, who states that they are taken better off shore where the seines cannot touch bottom. On the other hand, Mr. Washburne and Mr. Brightman are of the opinion that the use of the seine does not influence the movements of the fish.

Mr. Church, who has had much experience in the fisheries of Rhode Island, is very positive in his opinion. He writes: "The nets and seines do not scare the fish from the shore, for Narragansett Bay has been the theater of their greatest capture for forty years or more, and they have been more plenty than ever before known for the last ten years. I have seen a school of fish set at ten times in succession in deep water, and they would dive under the seine each time, but when they came to the surface they would not be ten feet from the seine, and they would lie still until we got ready to set, and when the seine was around them they would dive again. Fish will drive menhaden but man never does, except by use of powder; the menhaden are sensitive to a jar, such as is caused by striking the deck of a vessel with an ax. Even so slight a jar as the dropping of an oar or the careless slat of a rung on the gunwale has sent a school of fish off at top speed." Mr. Dudley confirms this. Steamers must carry low-pressure engines and run as noiselessly as possible.

Fishermen on Long Island Sound and about its eastern entrance seem to be divided in opinion. Messrs. Sisson, Havens, B. Lillingston, Washington, Crandall, and Dodge incline to think that fishing with nets

drives the fish away, while Messrs. Whaley, Potter, Wilcox, Beebe, Ingham, Miles, F. Lillingston, and Hawkins Brothers share the opposite belief. It should be noted in this connection that in Long Island Sound and vicinity purse seines worked off shore have almost superseded the haul-seines used twenty or thirty years ago, which were worked from row-boats and drawn up on the beaches. Does not this point to a change in the habits of the fish? In this district, where the fisheries are mostly prosecuted in waters more or less land-locked, the fish are not so apt to be driven out to sea as in Maine, where the fishing is prosecuted on an open.coast. The timid fish may easily be crowded out into deep water by the vessels, which, working from the shore, usually approach them from that direction. If the fisheries of Maine were to be suspended for a short time the fish would doubtless return in full force to their former haunts. It appears from the statement of Mr. Sartell, already quoted, that they appear inshore in considerable numbers if the large seines are laid up for a single day. Mr. Simpson thinks that a school which is frightened away by nets returns to the same place in the course of two or three hours. South of Long Island, menhaden fisheries have not been carried on to such an extent as to exert any modifying influence upon the habits of the fish.

The opinion of Mr. Atkins.

100. There is room for difference of opinion on this subject. Boardman and Atkins do not accept this view, and after the thorough study they have made, their views are entitled to much respect. They remark:

"In general, it is safe to say that the surface movements of the menhaden are characterized by nothing so much as by capriciousness. They appear suddenly in the most unexpected spots, and, after a stay whose length nobody can foretell, all at once they disappear. One day they may be found at the mouth of the Kennebec, the next at Pemaquid, and the third all along the shore. Occasionally they reappear daily in the same spot for weeks at a time. Such was the case in the latter part of the season of 1874, over the sandy bottom off the Phipsburg beaches. Then it will sometimes happen that a whole season will pass without their appearance in bays where they have previously swarmed. Again, in some seasons they crowd the harbors and coves; in others they seem to avoid them altogether. For some years past they have so generally absented themselves from these places as to excite a good deal of speculation as to the cause."*

And again:

"Of the desertion of the barbors and coves there seems to be abundant testimony. An observer in Boothbay says: 'Menhaden can be driven out of small bays so that they will not come in.' 'Certain it is that they do not come into the bays as they used to.' In Bluehill we are

* Op. cit., p. 11.

told the same story. In Jonesport it is said, 'Pogies used to run into all the coves and creeks. Of late years they do not appear to frequent the shores as formerly.' Testimony of this sort might be multiplied; but it is unnecessary. The fact is notorious. During the past season (1874) they returned to some of their old haunts in great numbers, but have by no means resumed their former habit in this respect. Of this singular change of habit there are various explanations offered. According to some persons it is caused by the practice of seining; others lay it to the oil and decaying matter from the oil-factories. Neither of these causes appears sufficient to produce such a result. The desertion of the coves is observed in localities far removed from those where the alleged causes have operated. Perhaps, after all, the thing to be accounted for is why the menhaden ever crowded into small bays as they used to. Were they there in search of food, were they simply obeying blind instinct, or were they driven in by hordes of hungry foes outside? The latter supposition seems quite as probable as the others. We know that small fishes sometimes rush ashore to escape pursuit; we know that this happens with herring when flying from the pollock, and with menhaden when flying from the bluefish and horse-mackerel. The presence, outside, of a large number of predaceous foes, of whatever species, would be ample to drive the menhaden in. This might happen year after year; while with the cessation of the cause the result would cease too, and the menhaden would no longer crowd into the coves as before. If this view be correct, then the recent absence of the menhaden from the shores indicates an improvement in its chances of life, by the removal of its destroyers. Lack of information forbids an attempt to point out the species that have been most active in producing these movements of the menhaden; and indeed the theory itself is not proposed as one that has much of positive evidence in its favor, but just to show the possibility of accounting for the absence of the fish from shore on the hypothesis of the operation of causes purely natural, and not inimical, but positively favorable."

The opinion of Mr. Maddocks.

101. Still another view is advanced by Mr. Maddocks: "The menhaden, it is believed, does not of its own preference visit the coves and inner harbors, for its food seems to be less abundant in such localities, but to be driven into them by predaceous enemies. Upon the withdrawal of these, either in part or in full, the menhaden may reoccupy their former haunts at a remove from the shore, and thus disappear from inner waters."

I hardly think that the facts support this opinion. The habits of the fish when undisturbed, as they may be studied on the thousand miles or more of coast south of Cape Cod, are a safer guide than their habits on the much-seined coast of Maine.

102. Boardman and Atkins record some very interesting facts regarding

the change in the northern limits of the range of the menhaden within the past thirty years.

At Jonesport, Me., menhaden used to be very plenty. They were commonly caught in gill-nets two and one half fathoms deep, but it was practicable, almost any time, to get enough to go fishing with by spearing. They became scarce seven, eight, or ten years ago, and now very few are caught, although some come as far as this every year.*

At Lubec, thirty years ago or more, menhaden were so plenty during their short season (July and August) as to be a nuisance. They have not been plenty since 1840 or 1845, and now none are found east of Jonesport. They left suddenly, and since the date mentioned have been rarely seen. Mr. E. A. Davis, of Lubec, a man of long experience in the herring fishery, has not seen a single specimen for ten years. Mr. E. P. Gilles, also of large experience, in 1860, or thereabouts, got three hogsheads of them one afternoon tide, and since then has seen none.

At Pembroke, says Mr. Moses L. Wilder, "twenty years ago, and always before that, the menhaden used to come here every year in great numbers, filling every cove and creek; but for the past twenty years none whatever have been seen. Little use was ever made of them except for bait, and of that but little was needed here."+

There is also evidence to show that the waters of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have of late years been entirely deserted by them.‡

E.-ABUNDANCE.

16.-ABUNDANCE IN THE PAST.

The testimony of early writers.

103. Of the abundance of menhaden in times gone by we can know very little, for they have never been considered an important species, and might easily escape the observation of writers. We infer that they were abundant the time of the Dutch colony on New York Island, two hundred years ago, from the name given to it by the New Netherlanders; in fact we have the statement, already quoted, of Dankers and Sluyter, who before 1679 saw in the bay of New York "schools of innumerable fish, and a sort like herring, called there marsbanckers." L'Hommedieu speaks of their abundance at the close of the last century.§

Professor Mitchill, writing in 1814, states: "They frequent the New York waters in prodigious numbers. From the high banks of Montock, I have seen acres of them purpling the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The waters of Long Island Sound and its bay are often alive with schools of them."¶

*Statement of Z. D. Norton.

+ Boardman & Atkins, op. cit., p. 21.

See below, paragraph 222.

Agricultural Transactions of New York, I, p. 65. See Appendix O.

¶Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, 1815, I, p. 453.

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