The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1885-07-10
OF ACQUAINTED WITH THE INSTITUTION.
Philadelphia Press.
FISHES, LOST AND FOUND.
Commander Tanners Account of IA
Week Cruise in the AIbatYoss.
Washington Post.


I'VE have been searching for some lost
fish. -Four years ago an immense number of
tile fish came on our coast, and quantities of
them were caught. They were altogether a
strange fish in this neighborhood then. and
people did not know what to make of them
They looked very much like the cod. and
grew to about the same size. They had
bright yellow spots on their sides. and on
the top Of their heads a horny crest, quite
long in the larger fish. Well, some of them
were sent to the Smithsonian Institution.
where they were named Professor Baird
tried them and found that they made excel
lent eating, so their arrival was hailed with
great satisfaction by the fishermen as an i'm
portant addition to their prey They were
so plentiful, that with two hooks on my line
could always be sure of pulling up two fish
Well, in the spring of 49, incoming steamers
reported passing through immense quantities
of Goldfish floating on the surface, either dead
or dying. They were found to be the tile
fish, and such was their number that Captain
j. w. Collins, of the fish commission, calcu-
lated that there must have been floating in
this manner nearly one and half billion
pounds of fish, at the very low rate of ten
pounds to each fish. What caused the de-
SbluCllull nUDOuN KNOWS, DuU everybody has
his own opinion. Some think it was the
lack OF food, or disease, but all the fish
We're healthy and fat. The more probable
opinions is that cold current of water came
down from the north, and, in their efforts to
find warmer place, the fish swan upwards
and got out OF their proper atmospherical
pressure They could not get down again
because their bladders, under their unac-
customed pressure, were forced into their
throats and their eyes were bulged out, and
SO they Died. But 1t seemed impossible that
the whole colony of them should have been
killed; so, they being important commercial
ly, we have been looking for them ever since
On this cruise, which has only occupied a
week.. we started from Norfolk and exam
med the coast from east of the Chesapeake
CapeS TO cape HatteraS, using the traWl line
which has d thousand bated hooks. The
amount of marine life along our coasts is
enormous and the tile fish, il that was all
that was necessary, ought to have been plen-
tlfuL But at different times [ have searched
from Canpeachy Banks, off Yucatan to
Nantucket, without finding trace of them.
The other day we caught two specimens
OF very line food fish which have never be-
fore been found in the Atlantic. We cot
them Just east of Cape Hatteras, and they
are called caul0latilus cheysops-the first
cousin to the tile fish. We caught them bv
hand lines, and the fish were over two feet
long, and as pretty as | have ever seem
They have been found in the Gulf of Mexico
We put down our trawl-line every day. and
the first time we pulled it up, found on it
large numbers of munidas, which is crab
fish, with arms three times as long as its
body, hermit crabs, star-iSh and four pole
founders. Practically the same things were
found every day. The pole founder is a
large Hat fish, which is destined to be an i'm
portant element in the commerce of this
country. Here people have not very high
opinion OF fiat fish, but in London the pole
FOUNDER would be compared to turbot and
II 1t were dressed and served to you as tur-
DOT you would never know the difference.
Their mouths are too small to take hook
that would bear their weight. and they
would have to be caught with a trawl net.
They grow to large size. just east of CAPE
Henry the sea bottom is teeming with life
and that was just the place for tile fish, but
none could be found
Another time we saw what we took to be
an enormous turtle lying on the water, and
sent out boat to catch him. 1t turned ont
to be large sun-fsh, and the iron was put
III to hold him, but his flesh was not strong
enough, and the fish sank. We harpooned
three PROPOSES, and have brought them in
for examination. One day we came across
three black fish travelling along together, and
l think they were the queerest looking fish |
ever saw. They We're piebald All were
marked IN the same way, with four large
them very peculiar appearance
shortly afterwards we passed a school of
spotted porpoises, which looked as if some
one. had taken a brush of whitewash and
sprinkled them with it, As these are rather
rare we tried to catch one, but they were
very shy. | tried to shoot one, but failed in
that also, because unless the shot strikes
them at right angle it will glance off Some
days we would put out surface tow-net, and
once we were fortunate enough to catch
live nautilus, which is quite a rare thing to
do. This is the beautiful, but fragile animal
over whose fairy boat naturalists 20 into ec-
stacies. 1t died soon after we caught it, but
we have brought il along