14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



are all caught up. I wish they were, for they are the terror of nearly 

 all other kinds of fish." 



Bass. 



There has been a marked falling off in the number of these king of 

 fish to the sportsman from last year. Their failure this year has been 

 attributed to different causes, by some to the dumping of garbage near 

 the mouth of the bay. The drift of the lighter portion of this over the 

 fishing ground could hardly be supposed to effect the change, since it is 

 dumped not less than two miles from land and distributed over a large 

 area of surface. The amount of garbage rarely exceeds 150 barrels 

 and probably not over one-third, or fifty barrels, of this floats upon the 

 surface. Of this a small part only ever reaches our shores ; some of 

 this is devoured by birds, and we hear of fish being taken with vegetable 

 matter in them ; a large pollock was found with a quantity of celery in 

 its stomach. We cannot see that the floating of this small amount of 

 refuse of vegetable matter over the fishing ground can be more delete- 

 rious to the fishing than the same quantity of seaweed. That the gar- 

 bage attracts sharks and the sharks keep off other fish seems more 

 plausible. But the presence of sharks in the water this season in very 

 large numbers is attributed to the unusually warm weather by some of 

 our closest observers, and to this cause we are inclined. While we 

 doubt not the garbage does attract these fish in its locality we hardly 

 think it possible to draw them from distant localities to the extent ob- 

 served this season. 



Mackerel 



have been in or near our coast all the season, but did not take the hook 

 freely ; very few were taken except small mackerel, which are reported 

 as very plentiful all along the coast. 



[From the Halifax, N. S., Morning Herald.] 

 LETTER FROM W. H. ROGERS. 



Columbia, Pa., June 33, 1891. 

 The large increase in the catch of mackerel on the Nova Scotia coast this 

 spring is particularly gratifying to the writer, as it douhtless is to the fisher- 



