task--and chopped. The meat is readily eaten by all fishes, and appears
to form an excellent diet. Being more buoyant than any other article
tried, it sinks slower in the water and gives the fish more time to
seize it before it reaches the bottom, a consideration of considerable
practical importance. The labor involved in dredging and shelling is a
serious drawback, but were the colonies of unios sufficiently extensive
or their reproduction rapid enough to warrant expenditure of time in
experimentation; improved methods might be devised, which would put
this food-source on a practicable basis.
During the seasons of 1886 and 1888 some use was made of mosquito
larvae. Near the station is an extensive swamp where these insects
breed in great numbers. From the pools of water the larvae were daily
collected by means of a set of strainers specially devised for this
use. Barrels filled with water were also disposed in convenient places
near the rearing troughs, and were soon swarming with larvae from the
eggs deposited by the mosquitoes on the surface of the water. When near
the completion of their growth, which was only some ten days after the
deposit of the eggs, the larvae (or pupae) were strained out and fed
to the fish. No kind of food has been used this station that has been
more eagerly devoured, and so far as our observation has gone no other
food has contributed more to the growth of the fish; indeed, I am
inclined to put them at the head in both respects. It was found,
however, that the time expended in collecting them was out of all
proportion to the quantity of food secured, and pending opportunity for
further experiment their use was discontinued.
I think it quite possible that an arrangement might be devised whereby
the greater part of the labor might be saved. Perhaps a series of
breeding tanks arranged in proximity to the fish troughs, into which
the water containing the larvae might be drawn when desirable by the
simple opening of faucet, would solve the problem.
Various methods of serving the food have been tried, but at present
everything is given with a spoon. The attendant carries the food with
the left hand--in a 2-quart dipper if chopped meat, in a larger vessel
if maggots--and, dipping it out with a large spoon, strews it the whole
length of the trough, being careful to put the greater portion at the
head, where the fish nearly always congregate. Finely chopped food, for
very young fish, is slightly thinned with water before feeding. At one
time the finest food was fed through perforations in the bottom of a
tin dish; the food was placed in the dish, which was dipped into the
water a little and shaken till enough of the food had dropped out of
the perforations; this practice was laid aside because it was thought
that the food was too much diluted.
In feeding maggots it was, at first, the practice to place them on
small "feeding boards" of special construction suspended over the water
in the troughs and let them crawl off into the water; but whatever
advantage this method may have had in furnishing the meal to the fish
slowly was more than counterbalanced by the extra labor of caring for
the boards and by the offensive odor, and it was abandoned. For use in
feeding fish in a pond a box containing a series of shelves, down which
the maggots slowly crawl, was found sufficiently useful to be retained.
It is the common practice to feed all meat raw except the lights, which
chop better if boiled first, except also occasional lots of meat that
are on the point of becoming tainted and are boiled to save them. All
meats fed direct to the fish are first passed through a chopping
machine. The machine known as the "Enterprise" is the one now in use.
It forces the meat through perforated steel plates. The plate used for
the smaller fish has perforations 2 inch in diameter, and for coarser
work there are two plates 3/16th inch and 3/8th inch, respectively. It
is operated by a crank turned by hand.
Food is given to those fish just beginning to eat four times a day (in
some cases even six times). As the season progresses the number of
rations is gradually reduced to two daily. In winter such fish as are
carried through are fed but once a day. The cleaning of the troughs has
been a troublesome matter, and the subject of much study and
experiment, but nothing more satisfactory has been found than the
following practice: The troughs are all to be cleaned daily--not all at
one time, but as time is found for it in the intervals of other work.
To facilitate cleaning, the troughs are inclined about 2 inches. The
outlet is commanded, as already explained, by a hollow plug.
When this is drawn the water rushes out rapidly and carries most of the
debris against the screen. The fishes are excited, and, scurrying
about, they loosen nearly all dirt from the bottom; what will not
otherwise yield must be started with a brush, but after the first few
weeks the brush has rarely to be used except to rub the debris through
the outlet screen. Owing to the inclination of the trough the water
recedes from the upper end until the fishes lying there are almost
wholly out of water, but, although they are left in that position
sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes, no harm has ever been known to result.
It has been the common rule at the station to count all the embryos
devoted to the process of rearing, either before or after hatching; to
keep an accurate record of losses during the season, and to check the
record by a recount in the fall. When eggs are counted they are lifted
in a teaspoon.
The counting of small fish is effected in this way: The fish are first
gathered in a fine, soft bag-net, commonly one made of cheese-cloth,
and from this, hanging meanwhile in the water, yet so that the fish
cannot escape, they are dipped out a few at a time, in a small dipper
or cup, counted, and placed in a pail of water or some other
receptacle.
This counting is generally preliminary to weighing, and in this case
the fish, after counting, are placed in another bag-net, in which they
are lowered, several hundred at a time, into a pail of water which has
been previously weighed, and the increase noted. With care to avoid
transferring to the weighing pail any surplus water, this is a correct
method and very easy and safe for the fish.
In conclusion, I submit some estimates of cost. In September, 1893, we
fed fry that were estimated at the close of the month to number
238,300. There were also a few hundred larger fish.
From the known total outlay for food, attendance, and superintendence a
suitable allowance is made for the maintenance of the older fish, and
the balance is charged to the fry. By this method we arrive at the
following results:
Cost...................Total........Per fish.
Food $155.00 $0.00065
Attendance 99.79 .00042
Superintendence 205.96 .00086
Total 460.75 0.00193
Applied to the rearing operations of 1891, a similar calculation gives
us this result: The fry that were carried through the season from June
to October, inclusive, cost, for food, attendance, and superintendence,
$0.0081 each; that is, about four-fifths of a cent each for the term of
five months.
ARTICLE VII
NOTES ON THE CAPTURE OF ATLANTIC SALMON AT SEA AND IN THE COAST WATERS
OF THE EASTERN STATES
By Hugh M. Smith, M. D., Assistant in charge of Division of Statistics
and Methods of the Fisheries.
_Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission_, Vol. 14, Page 95, 1894.
In carrying out its most important function--the maintenance and
increase of the supply of food fishes--the U.S. Commission of Fish and
Fisheries, in addition to direct efforts to increase the abundance of
fishes naturally inhabiting our various rivers, lakes, and coast
waters, has given considerable attention to the experimental
introduction of fishes into regions or streams to which they were not
native.
The wonderful success which has followed the planting of shad and
striped bass fry in the waters of the Pacific coast is well known. The
results attending the recent attempts of the Commission to establish
a run of salmon (_Salmo salar_) in some of the large rivers of the
Atlantic coast have been so noteworthy in the case of the Hudson as
to afford reasonable ground for expecting the early inauguration of a
regular fishery, should the present rate of increase in the abundance of
the fish be maintained. Similar striking results may also be anticipated
in all the more northern streams of the east coast, including the
Housatonic, Connecticut, and Merrimac, in which salmon were at one time
found in abundance and are now taken in small numbers, if the ascent
of the adult fish to the headwaters for the purpose of spawning is
permitted and if sufficiently extensive fish-cultural operations are
continued.
The primary purpose of this paper is to record some of the apparent
results of salmon propagation in our rivers as shown by the occurrence
of the fish at points on the coast or at sea more or less remote from
the places where fry have been deposited.
While an interesting and instructive compilation might be made of the
instances of the capture of salmon in the Hudson, Delaware,
Susquehanna, Potomac, and other rivers in which the fish has been
acclimated, such a work is not necessary in view of the notice which
has already been accorded the matter in the public press and in the
reports of several of the State fish commissions, notably the New York
commission.
So much yet remains to be learned regarding the lines of migration of
the salmon to and from the rivers, its winter habitat, the existence of
an "instinct of nativity" which is supposed to impel the return of the
fish to the place where hatched, the extent of the coastwise
distribution of salmon originally belonging in a given river, and
numerous other practical and scientific questions, that the
presentation of any data bearing on the occurrence of the fish outside
of the rivers may be regarded as acceptable and timely.
In an interesting article on "Salmon at Sea," communicated to the issue
of _Forest and Stream_ for February 18, 1892, Mr. A. N. Cheney, the
well-known angling expert and writer on fish-cultural matters, discusses
the question of the whereabouts of salmon after they leave the rivers,
and quotes the following from a previous contribution by himself on the
subject:
"There is a certain mystery about the habits and movements of the sea
salmon, after it has left the fresh-water rivers in which it spawns and
gone down to the sea, that never has been satisfactorily explained. One
theory is that all the salmon of the rivers along a coast may journey
down to the sea, and then move ultimately in one great body southward
along the coast until they find water of suitable temperature, with an
abundance of food, in which to spend their time in growing fat until
the spawning instinct warns them to return, when they proceed
northward, each river school entering its own particular river as the
main school arrives opposite the river month.
"Another theory is that the salmon of each river, as they arrive at its
mouth after descending from its headwaters, go out to sea sufficiently
far to find the conditions of temperature and food which suit them, and
there they remain, separate from the salmon of other rivers, until it
is time for them to return to fresh water. Considering the certainty
with which the salmon of any particular river return again to the
stream of their birth, the latter theory seems the more tenable of the
two."
Another object of this paper is to solicit correspondence from
fishermen, especially those engaged in the coast and offshore
fisheries, concerning the circumstances of the capture of salmon in
their nets, and to bring to their attention the opportunity they will
thus have of increasing the knowledge of the movements of the salmon,
of aiding in the determination of the results of fishcultural
operations, and of ultimately if not immediately benefiting themselves
by supplying information that will conduce to the most effective
application of artificial methods.
To this end it is the intention to send the paper to fishermen engaged
in the mackerel, menhaden, and other sea fisheries, and to operators of
pound nets, traps, and other shore appliances, with the hope that
instances of the capture of salmon may be communicated to this
Commission and notes on the size, condition, movements, etc., of the
fish be furnished.
To aid in the identification of the salmon when caught by fishermen who
have not previously met with the fish, a figure is presented.
In this connection mention may be made of the chinook or quinnat salmon
of the Pacific coast (_Oncorhynchus chouicha_), fry of which have been
extensively planted in eastern waters by the U. S. Commission of Fish
and Fisheries. Up to and including the year 1880, about 12,000,000 fry
were deposited in rivers and other waters tributary to the Atlantic.
While a few relatively large examples have been taken, this office has
no information to show that the attempts to acclimate this species on
the Atlantic coast have as yet been successful. In 1891 a few thousand
yearling salmon were placed in New York waters tributary to the sea.
The possibility of the survival and growth of some of these and of the
large early colonies prompts this reference to the matter and suggests
the publication of the accompanying figure of the species, to afford a
basis for distinguishing the two kinds of salmon, which closely
resemble each other. To further aid in the identification of the two
species the following key has been prepared:
Rays in anal fin, 9; scales between gill opening and base of tail, 120;
branchiostegals (false gill openings), 11 ..........ATLANTIC SALMON.
Rays in anal fin, 16; scales between gill opening and base of tail,
150; branchiostegals, (false gill openings) 15 to 19..........PACIFIC
SALMON.
Numerous instances might be cited of the taking of salmon in the waters
of the Atlantic coast in recent years. Their occurrence in the traps
and pound nets is in fact so common that it would hardly be entitled to
notice at this time were it not for the circumstance that in regions in
which salmon were already known there has been a decided increase in
the number observed outside the rivers, and that the fish is now being
taken in localities in which it was not previously found.
Instances of the capture of salmon in the coast waters of Maine are
naturally numerous, and without significance so far as the purposes of
the present paper are concerned. The existence of two important salmon
rivers, the Kennebec and the Penobscot, affords an easy explanation of
the presence of salmon on the shores of either side of the mouths of
those streams. In the report of the U. S. Commission of Fish and
Fisheries for 1873-73 Mr. Charles G. Atkins, now superintendent of the
salmon-rearing establishment at East Orland, Me., and an authoritative
writer on the Atlantic salmon, contributes some notes on its occurrence
in the sea adjacent to Penobscot Bay and at Richmond Island, near
Portland. These cases, however, have little bearing on the subject in
hand, as Mr. Atkins suggests in a recent letter.
A special inquiry, personally conducted on Matinicus, Monhegan, and
other islands lying far off the Maine coast, and special researches
there made with appropriate apparatus, would doubtless disclose many
interesting facts regarding the salmon of a practical and scientific
nature. A few apparently unrecorded notes concerning the fish among
islands off the island of Mount Desert may be given, which are probably
indicative of what may be expected in other sections.
Mr. W. I. Mayo, who has fished herring brush-weirs at the Cranberry
Isles for many years, and is a life-long fisherman in that section,
communicates the intelligence that salmon were first observed about
those islands in 1888. On June 17 a salmon, weighing 20 pounds, was
taken in a herring weir, and on June 19 another, weighing 19 pounds,
was caught. On July 14 of the same year 6 salmon, weighing 4 to 6
pounds apiece, were secured, but were liberated on account of their
size. During the four years intervening between 1888 and 1893 none was
taken around these islands, but in June of the latter year they
reappeared. On June 11 a salmon weighing 15 pounds was taken in a weir,
and on various occasions during that month a number weighing 12 to 15
pounds each were caught by boat fishermen on trawl lines fished for
cod.
The trawls were baited with herring and set on the bottom in rather
deep water. Mr. Mayo states that these were the first salmon ever taken
on trawl lines in that region. The Cranberry Isles lie off the
southeastern part of Mount Desert Island, and are about 25 miles east
from Penobscot Bay and about 35 miles in a straight line from the mouth
of the Penobscot River.
On the Massachusetts coast salmon are now regularly taken each year at
most of the important pound-net and trap fisheries. The largest numbers
are caught in Cape Cod Bay. A State law prohibits the taking of salmon
in nets and requires the return to the water alive of all fish so
caught. This makes the fishermen diffident about giving information and
renders difficult the determination of the abundance of the fish. On
June 6, 1879 the _Cape Ann Advertiser_, of Gloucester, contained the
following note:
"A 10-pound salmon was taken from a weir off Magnolia Thursday night.
This is the first salmon caught off Cape Ann for over thirty years. On
Saturday morning three more large salmon were taken. The fishermen are
highly elated at the prospect of salmon-catching."
During the past five or six years a few salmon have been taken almost
every season in the vicinity of Gloucester, the average annual catch
being 4 to 6 fish. In 1888 the State fish commissioners reported the
capture of 18 salmon in traps at Manchester and Gloucester. In 1893, 13
traps in the neighborhood of Gloucester took 5 salmon.
In December, 1891, a salmon weighing 28 pounds was caught on a cod
trawl line set near Halfway Rock, off Salem Harbor, Mass.; Mr. William
Dennett, of Gloucester, who secured the fish, reports that he sold it
for $46. Mr. Samuel Wiley, of Gloucester, in September 1893, caught a
salmon at sea off Gloucester on a trawl line fished for hake. These are
the only instances that have been reported of the capture of salmon on
a hook in the vicinity of Gloucester. As the trawl lines in question
were set on the bottom at a depth of 20 or 25 fathoms, the fact that
these two fish at least were swimming on the bottom may be considered
established.
Relatively large numbers of salmon have recently been taken in the
pound nets of Cape Cod Bay. Capt. Atkins Hughes, of North Truro, one of
the best-informed and most reliable fishermen in the region, informs us
that at North Truro, the principal pound-net center in the bay, about
70 large salmon have been annually caught for two or three years. The
fish are taken throughout the entire pound-net season, but are most
common in the early part of the fishing year (May and June). Some fish
weighing 25 to 28 pounds have recently been caught. For two or three
years he has noticed in the pound nets in October large numbers of
young salmon, about 6 inches long; each net probably takes one or two
barrels of these annually; he had never observed these small fish
before in his long fishing career in that region. In 1893, however,
rather less than the usual number of large salmon were observed, and
very few of the small fish mentioned were taken.
Mr. Vinal N. Edwards, of the Fish Commission station at Woods Holl,
Mass., states that in September, 1892, when he visited the Cape Cod
region, a great many salmon were being taken in the pound nets. They
weighed 4 or 5 pounds apiece. At one pound-net fishery in Provincetown
he saw enough salmon to fill two sugar barrels.
Concerning the occurrence of salmon in the Cape Cod region, Mr. Cheney,
in the article previously mentioned, quotes Hon. Eugene G. Blackford,
of New York, as follows:
"We get every winter a few fish from the Atlantic coast that are
evidently part of the schools of fish that run up into the Kennebec,
Penobscot, and other eastern rivers. During November and December we
had about 15 to 20 fish, weighing from 12 to 24 pounds each, that were
caught in the mackerel nets in the vicinity of Provincetown and North
Truro, Mass. These nets are set out from the Cape in very deep water.
"During the past two or three weeks we have received several specimens
of very handsome salmon from Maine, where they have been caught by the
smelt fishermen in their nets when they have been fishing for smelt. I
think these catches of salmon go very far to prove that the schools of
fish are not very far off from our shores during the time that they are
not found in the rivers, and that both shad and salmon, when they leave
our rivers, do not go either east or south, but are within 100 miles or
so of the rivers where they were spawned. The fish are remarkable in
being in splendid condition and perfect in form and appearance."
Mr. Cheney thinks the salmon taken off Cape Cod belong in either the
Merrimac River or the Penobscot River; and, as in the year in question
fish were being caught at the mouth of the Penobscot at the same time
they were being taken at Cape Cod, he thinks it probable that the fish
in the latter region were from the Merrimac.
In the pound-net fishery of the northern coast of New Jersey the recent
capture of salmon has been a subject of much interest to the local
fishermen and of considerable importance to fish-culturists and
naturalists.
For a number of years a few salmon have, from time to time, been taken
in Sandy Hook Bay, but within the past two or three years there has
been an increase in the number caught. At Belford, the principal
fishing center in the bay, Mr. M. C. Lohsen states that some have been
taken weighing from 12 to 40 pounds, and that in the spring of 1893
more than the usual number were caught in the pound nets. Mr. Harry
White, of the same place, never took salmon in pound nets prior to
1891; he secured 1 that year and 2 in 1892, but failed to get any in
1893. Other fishermen, however, obtained one or two fish. The average
weight of the salmon taken here is 12 to 15 pounds; the largest caught
by Mr. White weighed 17 and one half pounds. Small ones, weighing half
a pound each, are sometimes observed. It is only during the month of
May that salmon are noticed on this shore. One weighing 16 pounds,
taken in a pound net at this place in 1891, sold for $11; the following
year two, with a combined weight of 23 pounds, sold for $15.95.
In the vicinity of Long Branch, we are informed of the recent capture
of a number of salmon in the pound nets set directly in the ocean. Mr.
Ed. Hennessey, of North Long Branch, reports that in 1892 two salmon
and in 1893 one salmon were taken in his pound; they weighed from 10 to
15 pounds each. In April, 1891, Messrs. Gaskins and Hennessey, of the
same place, secured a salmon in their pound; this was the only one they
ever took. Messrs. W. T. Van Dyke & Co., pound-net fishermen of Long
Branch, communicate the following instances of the taking of salmon by
them in 1893: May 10, 1 salmon weighing 9 1/2 pounds; May 11, 1 salmon
weighing 13 1/2 pounds; May 17, 1 salmon, and May 18, 1 salmon, weight
not given. Messrs. West and Jeffrey, pound-net fishermen at Long
Branch, report that in 1892 they caught 2 small salmon.
In 1893, 3 fish were taken, as follows: May 10, a salmon weighing 19
pounds; May 18, 1 weighing 12 pounds; May 20, 1 weighing 10 pounds. Mr.
Henry F. Harvey, who fishes a pound net at Mantoloking, N. J., about 35
miles south of Sandy Hook, communicates the information that in May,
1893, 2 salmon weighing 10 or 12 pounds each were taken at that place.
None had ever before been caught there.
One of the most interesting facts at hand concerning the oceanic
occurrence of the salmon has been noted in a previous paper in this
Bulletin, (*) but may be again referred to in order to make the present
article more complete. Instances of the capture or observation of
salmon far out at sea or even at relatively short distances from land
are very rare and are entitled to publication whenever noted.