THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 285 



individuals are found with mature spawn several months earlier. I 

 have thought it possible that they spawn more than once a year. 

 5' Whitefish (Coregomis). — The wiiitefish are the most abundant, 

 and, as an article of commerce, the most valuable fish of" this region. 

 Fifty thousand barrels per annum are taken among the Beaver Islands, 

 and the quantity is rapidly increasing. As an article of food they are 

 preferred to the trout, and inferior onlj^ to siskowit. Indians occasion- 

 ally take them througii the ice with spears. But the}' are only caught 

 in quantities with seines and gill-nets. 



Seines of all sizes are used in the usual manner. The seining begins 

 soon after the disappearance of the ice in the spring, and lasts from one 

 to three weeks, when various kinds of fish are taken, suckers being- 

 most abundant, but whitefish are taken in large quantities. Tl:ie 

 spawning season makes about three weeks of whitefish seining in 

 November. 



Fishing is principally done with gill-nets. The season begins from 

 the middle of May to the forepart of June, according to the warmth of 

 the weather, and usually ends the first week in December. 



Gill-nets are usually about five or six feet wide, and twenty rods 

 long. If designed for trout the meshes are four inches, for whitefish 

 three and a half, and lor herring three inches. When set for fishing, one 

 edge is weighted with stones and the other buoyed up with cedar floats, 

 so that they maintain a vertical position. From six to twelve nets 

 are bridled too-ether and called a oano. 



When the nets are prepared for setting, the fisherman takes them to 

 .-ome favorite resort of the fish, usually a feeding or spawning place, 

 and first sinks a stone anchor to the bottom and makes fast to it a 

 buoy with a flag-staff and flag attached; then fastening the end of the 

 gang to a buoy by a line long enough to reach the bottom, he rows or 

 sails his boat in the direction he wishes to place the nets, paying out 

 the nets as the boat moves till lie gets to the end, when he fastens to it 

 another buo}' and flag by a line long enough to drop the net to the 

 bottom. 



The nets are usualty leli in the water three days, when they are 

 filled, the fish taken out, stones and floats taken off, and the nets dried, 

 repaired, and prepared for setting again. Twenty fish to a net is a 

 good yield, but as many as one hundred are sometimes taken. 



Whitefish come into the shoals in the spring (tor what purpose I 

 have been unable to learn) ; hence the spring seining. The first 

 gilling is usually in from two to five fathoms water. As the season 

 advances they retire to deeper water, till by the first of September they 

 are found in from fifty to one hundred and fifty fathoms water. Indeed, 

 off Fox Island nets have been set with success in water fourteen hun- 

 dred feet deep. The largest fish come from the deep water. 



The spawning season begins in November, and terminates in Decem- 

 ber. This year (1853) it commenced November 11, and is apparently 

 just closing (December 7). The spawning season is indicated by 

 the fish leaving deep water and appearing in immense numbers on 

 rock}^ shoals. The first day they appear upon the shoals the nets take 

 all males, apparently well stocked with milt. The second day a few 

 females appear among them, plump with spa^^"n. The proportion of 



