Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/471

Rh States in the latter part of March or early in April, and are generally first seen by the fishermen off the coast of North Carolina, in the region of Cape Hatteras. The year 1885 was a remarkable one in annals of American fishing; it was a period of glut in Mackerel. About 175 vessels were engaged in the fishery, and to New York alone probably no fewer than 850 trips, all told, were made; these averaged from 140 to 150 barrels each, so that during the season about 125,000 barrels of fresh Mackerel were landed in that city, this quantity representing about 31,250,000 fish.

The reappearance of the Tile-fish (Lopholatilus chamæleonticeps) is detailed by Dr. Bumpus. Most naturalists are familiar with the facts of the recent sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of this fish; and it was included by Mr. F.A. Lucas in his memoir on "Animals recently extinct or threatened with extermination, as represented in the Collections of the U.S. National Museum." Recent investigations have shown that the area of the distribution of the Tile-fish "probably extends from 69° to 73° west longitude, and along a band of the sea bottom of varying width, and from seventy to eighty fathoms in depth, although no tests were made in deeper water." It is also clearly a "warm water" fish.

The usual American enterprise has been exhibited in all things pertaining to economic ichthyology. The demand for fresh Herring as bait in the Cod fisheries led, in 1890, to the building of a number of freezing-houses along the New England coast, where shore Herrings are frozen during the fall, and kept for use during the winter and early spring; while "The Mussel fishery and pearl-button industry of the Mississippi River," already referred to in the pages of the 'Zoologist' (1899, p. 480), receives ample and well-illustrated treatment, and again proves that man's interference with nature has not yet reached its full dimensions.