29. I never noticed it to be so.

30. I cannot say positively whether the parent fish devour their young or not, but think not; there are, however, many of their eggs destroyed by fish that live on or near the bottom of the sea, such as flounders, scul pins, perch. Sharks and bluefish destroy many of the young fish.

31. Have never seen anything of the kind.

32. Probably the sharks and porpoises destroy many of them, but bluefish are their worst enemy; they destroy an immense number of them every year.

33. Never knew or heard of any disease among them. I have seen them in the mouth of the Merrimac River in immense quantities, schooling; they are probably destroyed in immen se numbers along the coast every year by the fresh water coming down the river.

34. Set-nets and seines.

35. The nets are from fifty to eighty yards in length, and from fifty to a hundred meshes in depth; the meshes are from four to four and a half inches in length.

21. Statement of David F. Loring, Cape Cod Light-Station, North Truro, Mass., February 23, 1875.

1. Pogy.

4. Do not know the number of barrels taken during the year 1873, probably not over a thousand in this vicinity; but during the fall of the year 1874 there was some thirty thousand barrels taken by small steamers with seines. These steamers belong to a company in Fall River, Mass. This company has a large establishment or oil-factory at Booth Bay, Me., where they carry on the business very extensively during the summer season. After the pogies leave the coast of Maine and start south the steam seiners follow them. After leaving their establishment in Maine in November, 1874, and while crossing Massachusetts Bay, the steamers took a fresh breeze and came into Provincetown Harbor; and in going out of the harbor to go around Cape Cod, after the storm, they fell in with pogies in the bay, and took 30,000 barrels in four or five weeks. I believe the fishermen in this vicinity have an idea of going into the business quite extensively the coming season; it will probably be the beginning of a large business.

10. It is doubtless a fact that these fish are driven away from the shore by the use of seines, especially in localities where the seining business is carried on extensively; as, for instance, the coast of Maine, where, a few years ago, the seiners could get all they wanted close in along the shore; now they have to go from thirty to fifty miles off-shore to get the fish. I am informed by old fishermen, who have been engaged in different kinds of fishing on the coast of Maine for the last fifteen or twenty years, that while these fish do not go in along the shore as they used to, they are very plentiful off-shore, but not as plentiful as they were ten years ago; and they agree with me that it is the seiners

that scare them away from the shore, and that they are fast diminishing in number.

21. I have seen them while spawning in the harbor at Provincetown. They get where there is plenty of eel-grass, in from one to three fathoms of water.

22. They get together in bunches or small schools, a barrel or two, more or less, in a school, and swim in a circle pressing against each other.

23. It is not.

50. When they first make their appearance on the coast in the spring of the year they are very poor. I think they will not average more than two quarts of oil per barrel of fish as they are taken from the seine.

51. About four gallons oil to a barrel of fish in November.

58. If it is a fact that these fish are scared away from the shore by the use of seines, and also that these fish do deposit, and if it is natural for them to deposit their spawn on seaweeds and rockweeds along the shore, and from my own observation I think they do, it then follows that they are driven away from their spawning as well as their old feeding grounds, and, as in regard to salmon and other fish that have been driven away from their natural spawning-grounds, they naturally will diminish.

25. Statement of Josiah Hardy, 2d, Chatham Mass., February 17, 1874, and January 9, 1875.

1. Menhaden or pogy.

2. They are more numerous than any other fish.

3. As to their diminishing within the last ten years there have been various opinions; but my opinion is, nor do any now deny it that they are less than they were in years previous to this period. These fish used to enter our bay and line the shores and fill up our inland bays and ponds in immense quantities even to their own suffocation. About the year 1832 they were so numerous on and about this coast, and filled our harbors and the mill and oyster ponds so full they suffo cated, and thousands of barrels of them drifted on shore. So many were they, that the inhabitants of this town were summoned to bury them lest a pestilence might arise. The same thing occurred a few years later; then there was no use for them, but they were used for dressing on the land. Since that time, as well as then, any quantity could be had for this purpose.

4. For the last five years about 3,000 barrels each year.

5. Between 1835 and 1840 the mackerel fishermen began using fish for bait, and large quantities were seined for this purpose. Since that time they have diminished to such a degree that very few have entered our harbors and ponds during the last few years. The most of those

which do enter remain through the season. These menhaden are only on their way to the eastern shores, coming from the west when they strike this bay. They come in large schools, and are followed by numerous sea-birds.

6. They have been caught in our bay as early as the 15th of April, but they generally come about the 1st of May.

7. It depends upon the wind. They are generally seen in schools, and they attract sea-fowl.

8. They come from the westward through Vineyard Sound and around Nantucket Island. They come in shore at high water; at low water they keep in the chaunel, which is from three to seven fathoms deep. I do not think the depth of water affects them very much. They are as regular in their course and movements as a flock of sea-fowl. When one is frightened, they all start; if one turns, all turn; if one goes down, all follow. They have one peculiarity for which we cannot account. Sometimes for hours not a fish can be seen, and then suddenly they rise to the surface and the water is full of schools, sometimes swimming in a circle and sometimes headed in the same direction.

9. I never knew them to fail.

10. Yes.

11. At high water they enter the rivers and follow up into shoal water; on the ebb, they go off into deep water.

12. Rhode Island, Chatham Bay, and the eastern shore of Maine. 13. They school in any depth, and generally near the surface, unless attacked by some enemy.

14. Yes; during northerly or cold winds they swim deep, while during southerly or warm winds they come to the surface.

15. They do evidently mix with fish partly grown.

16. They are in July and August. When some schools get into our inland ponds and stop through the summer, we see the young ones about two inches long and shorter.

17. The fish pass here from south in the latter part of September and first of October. All move about the same time.

18. They follow the shores of Cape Cod.

19. On the southern coast.

20. They apparently live by filtering the water through their gills. 22. They go in large schools, bnt are never known to pair.

23. No.

29. The oldest pogy fishermen say they never saw any spawn in them, but have seen what they called young pogies.

30. They are a prey to sharks, dogfish, squid, codfish, bluefish, halibut, and porpoises.

31. Nothing of the kind was ever seen on them here.

32. The bluefish are their great enemy, and they leave when this enemy comes.

33. I cannot find a man who ever saw a diseased menhaden.

34. Weirs and gill-nets.

35. Twenty-five feet deep and of different lengths, with pounds or traps at the ends. Gill-nets are 115 feet deep. Sweep-nets are 150 fathoms long and 25 deep.

36. There are no vessels in the business.

37. Ten men to a seine or weir.

38. Four hours each day.

39. More on the ebb than on the flood.

40. It does. The warm southwest winds are the most favorable.

41. There are none.

42. They are sold to the Gloucester codfish fleet and to spring mackerel fishermen for bait.

43. There is no oil establishment here.

47. About $1.50 in 1873.

48. The season makes a difference. In the spring they are very poor and in the summer and fall very fat.

55. A guano factory on Vineyard Sound.

58. It does not diminish them perceptibly. We have in our bay (1875) thirteen fish-weirs within twelve miles, which are set from the 15th of April until the 1st of June. These weirs are set in from two to five fathoms of water. We catch all kinds of fish, for if the leader of a school falls into our traps the rest follow, and thus tons of fish of all kinds are taken.

26. Statement of Alonzo Y. Lothrop, Hyannis, Mass., February 18, 1874, and January 1, 1875.

1. Pogy.

2. Favorably.

3. Greatly diminished.

4. Not many in the immediate vicinity; large numbers east and west. 5. It does, apparently, in this section.

6. In May and September.

7. They swim high and make a ripple; attract sea-gulls and other birds.

8. From the Gulf Stream. They follow up rivers and bays. Have caught them in "dip-net" two miles up Shoal River in two feet of water. 9. Regular and certain.

10. No.

11. All fish more abundant in this section 66
on flood."

12. From New York to Maine, near shore, rivers, bays, and bends.

13. Shoal water.

14. Leave the coast in cold weather.

15. Yes.

16. Never noticed. Have seen resemblance in smaller fish.

17. In September or October. Should say in a body.

18. Southern.

19. In warm water; probably in the Gulf Stream. 20. Friars, shrimp, and minnows.

22. Think they mix indiscriminately.

23. I never saw the water colored.

26. I think they float in the water until hatched.

28. Not abundant in this section.

29. Yes.

30. Sea-gulls and other birds; besides sharks, dogfish and bluefish. 31. Have noticed quantities of crabs in same seine with pogies. 32. They suffer fearfully.

33. Have noticed them lying dead on the shore. I suppose they were carried up by shoal water or by sea-weed.

34. Purse-net with small mesh.

35. Various. Some 1,000 yards long and 6 fathoms deep.

36. Steamers, schooners, and sloops.

37. Ten to thirty.

38. Morning.

39. Flood.

41. None in immediate vicinity.

42. Mostly to oil factories.

43. None; one at Wood's Holl.

47. From 30 to 50 cents per barrel.

48. One barrel, about.

50. One gallon.

53. Until within a few years pogies were used by mackerel catchers for bait, ground in bait-mill on board of vessel, and fed out to this class of fish (mackerel) to raise them to surface of water. They are then caught by hook and line. Within a few years oil factories have been established, taking in a large territory, and carried on on a large scale at the present time.

54. Cities.

56. Painting purposes.

58. I should say they had not diminished.

Menhaden, or pogies, as they are commonly called in the Eastern States, were found in unusually large quantities during the year 1874, apparently an increase in their numbers. One steamer alone carried into Linniken's Bay (near Booth Bay, Maine) nearly 25,000 barrels. Taking into consideration the large number of vessels of various kinds connected with the business, immense quantities of these fish must be used up yearly, but still they come.

27. Statement of William S. Allen, Nantucket, Mass., January, 1875.

1. Menhaden.

2. Comparison small.

3. No observable change.