It took up its permanent residence with us and proceeded to increase and multiply. It is now the most abundant of our salt water fishes. It stands at the head of the list and yet it may be on the way to displacement. We hope it is, as it is very voracious, and if supplanted at all will have a substitute its superior in every point. Within the last fifteen years the Spanish mackerel, cybium maculatum, has made its appearance among us. Taking its name from the Spanish West Indies where it was first only caught, it was wholly unknown on our shores till quite lately. Nor does it now seem to breed among us. The young are not found in any of our bays or creeks.

but it is yearly becoming more and more numerous. Even now there are days in summer when the Long Island coast literally swarms with Spanish mackerel. They have been observed in solid schools twenty miles wide and of unknown length. These immense masses must evidently have come on from the south, but it has taken them years to get here. They have moved gradually and it is to be hoped they will be equally slow in leaving, and that they may supplant the blue-fish to which they bear a family resemblance. They are, as a table delicacy, the finest fish which is to be found in our country, and will add much to the attractions of our fish food if they remain with us.

This same unwillingness to change locality is still more observable among fresh water fish. The trout fisher has often observed a trout of unusual size occupying a certain spot in the stream, and expected always to find him until he was captured, or driven away. Salmon Trout and Pickerel fishing through the ice, in winter, demonstrates this love of locality in a still more marked degree. It is found that after fishing for a few days at one place, the fisherman can take no more, and he must move and cut new holes for his lines. Though it be only a change of a few hundred yards the fishing will be renewed and as good as ever. Now, if trout were in the habit of roaming about they would have no local habitation, but be taken in one part of the stream one day, and in another the next. So with Salmon Trout and pickerel, did they keep continually moving there would be no use in a fisherman changing his lines; he would only have to wait in one spot till the fish came round.

It is this peculiarity which rules in most if not all our fish which makes pound-netting so terribly destructive.

Was the supply at each favorable station continuously renewed from the vast storehouse of nature, it would make no difference if they were all fished out at any one particular spot - a short rest would recuperate the fishery and others would take the place of those which had been caught. As it is, however, when any locality is stripped clean and bare, it remains barren for a long time. Where only a few valuable fish are left, their natural enemies, being as numerous as ever, prevail against them and destroy the last remnant.

Possibly, after many years of waiting, strangers may work their way in; but it is a slow operation. If man endeavors to assist the process by artificial cultivation, he has nothing to work upon. He can get no eggs, because the parents are gone. He must import and plant new seed, an undertaking always difficult, and often doubtful.

Fykes are modified pound nets, and not so injurious unless too many of them are set, or the mesh is too small. They have short wing, and the outer end is kept open with hoops of wood, some being larger and some smaller, so as to make modified traps in which the fish are retained. The objection against them as they are now used is, that they catch the fry on account of the smallness of their mesh. Seines are sweep nets, and are the least injurious of all, as they give the fish a chance to slip by while they are not in use. Another destructive net is the gill net. It is used largely for shad, and is either attached to poles as a permanent and fixed fishing engine, or is floated by the current, suspended in the water.

Their length varies between one hundred and eight hundred fathoms. The largest of these require but one light skiff, with two, or at most, but three men to manage them. Being constructed of fine twine they are almost imperceptible to the fishes in the turbid tide waters. When later in the season the water becomes clear, greater execution is done by fishing at night. The mesh was formerly six and one-fourth inches, it is now reduced to five and even less, sufficiently large, however, to admit of the shad getting its head so far through the mesh that it is fastened by the gills, hence the term gill net, but so small as to take fish that should not be marketed.

These gill nets have both a lead and a cork line, by which they are held in a vertical position as they drift with the current. With the treble view of the economy of material, the prevention of injury by vessels of light draught in passing over them, and to enable the same net to be used with facility in either deep or shoal water, the upper margin of the net is supported by long and slender cords of from five to seven feet in length, to the free ends of which corks or wooden floats are attached. The net thus constructed is laid upon the stern of the skiff, one or two men, according to its size, row the boat across the current, while another standing on the stern carefully casts the net into the water. This done, it is suffered to drift with the tide, direction being given it by the boat to which the end remains attached. After the net has drifted a sufficient length of time, the fishes are removed from it, either by under-running it or by replacing it upon the stern of the boat, again to be cast into the water.

No nets should be used except in the ocean, the large rivers and lakes,and even then the mesh should be limited as to size, but as it is doubtful whether the community is ready for so sweeping a law, necessary as it is ; the most injurious, which are the pound nets, should be everwhere prohibited. These are so fatal, that they should not be allowed anywhere unless it be in the ocean. We do not enter into any further details as to nets and net-fishing, for the reason that we are wholly opposed to their use except for two or three kinds of fish that can he taken in no other way and that are wholly food and not sporting fish. We believe that the sportsman and fish-culturist, has some rights which the net-fisherman is bound and will one day be made to respect. And the sooner that day comes the better for the community.