308 HISTORY AND METHODS L>F THE FISHERIES. 



2. THE PORPOISE FISHERY. 



THE PORPOISE FISHERY OF NEW ENGLAND AND NORTH CAROLINA. 



The porpoise, though abundant along the Atlantic coast of the United States, is not captured 

 except at a few places, and in limited numbers. In the Bay of Fundy the Indians shoot harbor 

 porpoises to some extent for their oil. A very graphic description of porpoise shooting by the 

 Passamaquoddy Indians appeared in Scribner's Monthly Magazine for October, 1880. 



Along the North Carolina coast porpoises were formerly taken in considerable numbers, but 

 the business was abandoned. There is a porpoise iishery of small importance on the Gulf coast 

 of Florida.* 



There appears to have been some interest taken in the porpoise fishery in the last century, for 

 in 1740, according to the Annals of Salem, Mass., "Thomas Lee is on a committee to consider the 

 proposal of William Paine, of Eastham, and his associates, to catch porpoise with a net. The 

 report on this subject was accepted, and an order passed for granting the petition till the last of May, 

 1742, which was sent up and allowed. The conditions were, that 2s. should be paid by the province 

 treasurer for each middle part of a porpoise's tail delivered, on oath, to the town clerk where the 

 shipper or owner belonged, that it was caught in the vessel of the latter, and then the clerk gave 

 a certificate that he had consumed the said part. One original certificate of 1740 declares that 

 sixteen such parts had been consumed, and another that one hundred and ninety-one had been 

 alike destroyed. As the fabled Venus is represented to have saved her life by assuming the shape 

 of a fish, so many a porpoise experienced like preservation by the shortness of the above monopoly. 

 The mode of securing this is among the curiosities whose practical existence has passed away. We 

 love to have an occasional interview with them through the vision of memory and then dismiss 

 them with a hearty good-bye." t 



At various times numbers of porpoises have been taken at Cape Cod and other places, as in 

 the summer of 1741 when one hundred and fifty porpoises as also a large number of blackfish 

 were captured at Barnstable, Mass. 



We are iuforuied by Mr. Earll that the stretch of coast from Cape Hatteras to Bear Inlet, 

 North Carolina, is a favorite run for the porpoise, and often immense herds of them may be seen 

 moving along within a few rods of the shore. As early as 1810 parties engaged in this fishery, and 

 from one to three crews followed it quite regularly up to 1860, when the fishery was discontinued 

 and has not since been resumed. t 



The method of capture consisted in having four seines of 200 yards each loaded in separate 

 boats, and as the lookout gave the signal the boats took their positions, the two outer seines were 

 lashed together, and at the next signal the seines were shot in the form of a semicircle to the shore, 

 the inner ends of the shore seines reaching toward the land, while the outer ends met or overlapped 

 the inner ends of the middle seines and were securely fastened. The distance between the boats was 

 always about the length of the seine, and the boats always shot the outer ends of their respective 

 seines first. While the ends of this united seine were being brought to land one or two boatmen 

 would remain near by to pound on his boat or "jab" the bottom with an oar to keep the porpoise 

 from escaping; but when the ends reached the shore and the porpoise securely penned, the net was 



* Since the above was written porpoise fisheries have been resumed at New Jersey and North Carolina, and there 

 is a prospect of the business increasing, as the skins have been found useful for leather, aud the flesh may have a 

 commercial value for food. See account by Frederick W. True in Bulletin U. S. Fish Commission, 1884. 



(FELT: Anuals of Saiem, vol. ii, p. 226. 



