REPORT OF COMMISSIOXERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 43 



instances they have been known to visit the coast of Labrador. They 

 appear irregularly off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland and 

 are never found in Hudson's Bay or on the coast of Greenland. 



On the European coast their southerly limit is the Canary Isles 

 and the ^lediterranean, where they abound, especially in the Adriatic. 

 They range northward to the south coast of Norway and Sweden; 

 they occur in the Baltic and are found along the shores of Denmark 

 and Prussia; they are abundant in the North Bea. At the British 

 Isles they abound in the channel north to Norfolk, but they also 

 occur to some extent along the east coast of Britain to the Orkney 

 Islands; also in the Irish Sea and off the south and southwest coasts 

 of Ireland. 



As far as records go, they have never been taken on the African 

 coast (except possibly in the Mediterranean), nor in South America, 

 the West Indies, or the Gulf of ^lexico, or even at the Bermudas. 

 Thus the common mackerel seems to be confined to the coast waters 

 of the temperate region of the North Atlantic, never straying into 

 tropical or polar regions nor habitually wandering long distances over 

 the ocean. 



II. Migrations. — The annual movements of the schools of the 

 common mackerel have, for a long time, been of great interest and 

 the subject of much speculation. These are partly a matter of practi- 

 cal interest because the success of the ' commercial fisheries would be 

 greatly facilitated by a knowledge of such definiteness regarding the 

 laws and conditions of their appearance and disappearance in differ- 

 ent years at different points along the coast that the fishermen could 

 regulate their operations accordingly. But the particular reason 

 why the question of the migrations of the common mackerel has 

 received more attention than those of an}' other fish is on account 

 of the disputes between the United States and the Canadian govern- 

 ments " concerning the value to our fishermen of the right to parti- 

 cipate in the mackerel fisheries in the Provincial waters." But in 

 spite of all this discussion about the habits of the mackerel, they are 

 little better understood in some respects than those of many other 



