MARINE FOOD FISHES. 29 



slow, is steadily going- ou, even in this wonderful " Home of the codfish." However this 

 may be, there is no room for doubt as to the falling off of the cod-fishery around the shores 

 of the Island. The most convincing proof is the fact that though the population has 

 doitbled within fifty years, and the number of persons engaged in fishing has greatly 

 increased, while the various contrivances for taking fish have been multiplied and rendered 

 far more efficient, yet the quantity of codfish taken annually at present does not exceed 

 that of forty or fifty years ago, when the primitive hook-aud-line was the chief instrument 

 of the fisherman. This decline holds good, especially in regard to the great bays, around 

 whose shores a large population has gathered. There was a time when a fisherman could 

 fill his boat in a few hours with fine cod within sight of his own door. Now the fish are 

 so scarce that large numbers of the fishermen are compelled to resort to Labrador and 

 other distant fishing grounds, at a great increase of toil and expense, the waters of their 

 own bays being largely depleted. Conception Bay was formerly one of the best fishing- 

 localities, and the population there became dense. Very little fish comparatively is now 

 taken in its waters, and there are no signs, from year to year, of any recuperation. 

 Placeutia, Trinity, Bonavista, Notre Dame Bays, and other fishing centres have also suffered, 

 more or less, in the same way. The size of the fish too has diminished, — a sure sign of a 

 declining fishery. Reckless, destructive methods of fishing, as well as over-fishing and the 

 extensive capture of immature fish, have combined in doing the mischief. No restraints 

 were placed by law on the fishermen ; and cupidity did not stop to consider the conse- 

 quences in the future. AdA'^ancing depletion now threatens the shore fishery. 



Such was the condition of affairs with which the Fisheries Commission, on their 

 appointment^ had to grapple. As a first step, they decided on the erection of a cod- 

 hatchery, with the view of testing the practicability of restoring exhausted waters by 

 artificial means. They considered that in those deep sheltered bays, with their arms 

 running far inland, and the water possessing peculiar purity and salinity, they had very 

 favourable conditions for hatching and rearing- young cod. Dildo Island in Trinity Bay 

 was selected as a site for the hatchery. The erection was on a large scale, and fitted up 

 with all the recent improvements. It has capacity for hatching from two hundred and 

 fifty to three hundred millions of cod- fry annually. If successful in Trinity Bay, cod- 

 hatching could be gradually extended around the Island, and its bays and fiords, with the 

 inshore fishing grounds converted into great codfish preserves. It was also decided that 

 the artificial propagation of lobsters should be carried on simultaneously with that of cod- 

 fish. In Newfoundland, as in every other country in which lobsters are taken, the 

 fishery shows alarming symptoms of rapid decline which, if not arrested, must ere long 

 end in the extermination of this valuable crustacean. Mr. Nielsen's invaluable invention 

 of floating incubators for hatching lobsters rendered it practicable to carry on this process 

 on a very large scale, and at many different places around the Island. 



These hatching operations have been carried oq during the summers of 18!t0 and 1891. 

 One of the principal difficiilties encountered has been the procuring of a sufficient number 

 of ripe spawning- fish to supply the hatchery with cod ova. The codfish around the 

 eastern and northern shores of the Island spawn from the beginning of May till the end 

 of July. The female codfish does not, like the salmon, accomplish the act of spawning at 

 once. The eggs ripen gradually, and pass from the fish into the water as they mature, 

 the period extending over six weeks. The spawuers are kept in tanks in the hatchery, 



