244 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



arrested by an apparently impassable barrier, natural or artificial, they will 

 leave the water and make their way above the obstruction, in endeavoring 

 to reach the point at which they aim. Here they bury themselves in the 

 mud and-feed on any kind of animal substance, the spawn of fish, the roes 

 of shad, small fish, etc. At the end of their sojourn in the ponds or streams 

 they return to the sea, and are then captured in immense numbers in many 

 rivers in what are called fish-baskets. A V-shaped fence is made, with the 

 opening down stream into the basket, into which the eels fall, and from 

 which they cannot easily escape. This same device, it may be incidentally 

 stated, captures also great numbers of other fish, such as shad, salmon, and 

 other anadromous fish, to their grievous destruction. As might be expected, 

 however, the Falls of Niagara constitute an impassable barrier to their as- 

 cent. The fish is very abundant in Lake Ontario, and until artificially intro- 

 duced was unknown in Lake Erie. At the present time, in the Spring and 

 Summer, the visitor who enters under the sheet of water at the foot of the 

 falls will be astonished at the enormous number of young eels crawling over 

 the slippery rocks and squirming in the seething whirlpools. An estimate 

 of hundreds of wagon-loads, as seen in the course of the perilous journey 

 referred to, would hardly be considered excessive by those who have visited 

 the spot at a suitable season of the year." 



The Men Who Man the Fishing Fleets. — From carefully prepared 

 statistics we learn that the number of men engaged on board the Gloucester 

 fishing fleets the past year (1881) was 4,142, divided as follows : Georges fleet, 

 1,460; Western Bank, 284; Grand Bank, 360 ; fresh halibut, 330 ; mackerel- 

 dng, 1,120; shore fishing, 430; dory fishing, 125; trap fishing, 24. This 

 does not include the crews of vessels from other ports who fit from here. 



The Alaska Codfish. — Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, who was on the U. S. 

 Fish Commission Corps in this city in 1878, and who was sent to Alaska by 

 Prof. Baird in the Summer of 1880, to investigate the codfishery of that 

 country, reports that the Alaska cod is the same as that of New England 

 and Europe, the Gadus moi-rhua^ with the same occasional variations. He 

 says that Golden cod, red cod and other algae forms are as well known at 

 the Shumagin Islands as they are around Cape Cod and Cape Ann ; the 

 beautiful lemon-yellow fish, which occasionally are found in Ipswich Bay 

 schools, are duplicated in Alaskan waters. The habits and food of the cod 

 are similar to those on our coast. The shore fish about Kodiak make their 

 appearance in schools similar to ours — first the "herring school," next the 

 " lant school," then the "capelin school," followed by the "squid school," 

 and the "winter school." Besides these there is an abundance of bank fish, 

 which are always larger than those previously named. The cod come on 



