26 BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



the fisherman's hook, and soon, in spite of bis violent efforts to break 

 the iron that is tearing - his mouth and to free himself, he is pulled out of 

 the water and thrown upon the deck, where be dies before long. 



" Such is the method of taking mackerel with the line, pursued by the 

 American fisherman, and our own, as well as those of Nova Scotia and 

 the other provinces, have adopted it as being the best. But it is far 

 from being invariably successful ; for it often happens that the fish, find- 

 ing plenty of food at the bottom of the sea, will not rise to the bait, or 

 care so little for it as hardly to bite at the hooks. But the great diffi- 

 culty with the fisherman is to find a shoal of mackerel. It is almost 

 always an affair of chance. When mackerel swim near the surface, as 

 they do when they are pursued by the porpoise or some other of the 

 large fish that prey upon them, they are easily recognized, especially by 

 the experienced fisherman, by the ripple they make in the water, and 

 sometimes the noise they make by beating the water with their tails ; 

 and the moment they are seen from the fishing schooners these bear 

 down upon them and make all sail, so as to reach the place where they 

 are as quickly as possible. Then quantities of bait are thrown into the 

 water, and if the fish are hungry a good take may be expected. From 

 15 to 30 barrels of mackerel, for example, may be taken in a forenoon by 

 a crew of fifteen. But mackerel do not always show themselves near the 

 surface; on the contrary, they generally keep at a great depth, in order 

 not to be seen; and then the fisherman are obliged to seek for them. 

 For this purpose they cruise with their vessels, as I have said already, 

 in certain places from sunrise to sunset; and I should add that in fine 

 weather they stop every half hour, and sometimes oftener, to throw 

 bait into the water, in the hope that some shoals of mackerel may see it 

 and allow themselves to be attracted by it to the surface. The mack- 

 erel-fishing schooners, which are almost always good sailors, often sail 

 from GO to 100 miles in a day on a cruise of this kind ; and they can 

 cruise for a week at a time and sometimes longer without taking a sin- 

 gle fish." 



It is also true that a vessel will remain out almost the entire season 

 and obtain barely enough fish to supply food, while at other times a 

 fortnight good fishing will secure a good load. With regard to curing, 

 the fish are simply washed, dipped in line salt, and packed in barrels, 

 either whole or split in two, with the flesh downward, salted with coarse 

 salt and pickle ; they are then divided into three grades, and priced 

 and sold accordingly. 



Lobsters, clams, crabs, &o. — Lobsters are found everywhere 

 along the coast in great abundance. There are factories for canning 

 them, however, only in Nova Scotia and on the Newfoundland coast. 

 Lobsters are caught in one of two ways.. When they are abundant, 

 boats are sent out and the lobsters caught in nets, which are stretched 

 over a barrel hoop or some similar frame, and lowered by strings into 

 the water, a piece of cod-head or some sort of bait having been tied down 



