THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 125 
by which a rapid rotation or whirling motion is caused when drawn 
through the water. Not unfrequently an eel-skin or similar substance 
is stretched over the shank of the hook, and answers an excellent pur- 
pose. A bait of white cloth is sometimes quite sufficient in taking 
mackerel. The efficiency of a piece of red flannel fastened to three hooks, 
placed back to back, in taking frogs is well known to boys in the 
country. 
Vegetable substances are not much used, as few fish are attracted by 
them. Bread crumbs, corn, cabbage leaves, &c., may be employed in 
the capture of carp and other vegetable feeders. 
Animal matter is generally employed as bait to attract fishes to the 
hook or into a net, other substances being considered of little account 
in comparison, almost every animal of any kind or description being 
available to a greater or less extent for the purpose. In sea fishing 
mammals are not used very extensively. Portions of meat of almost any 
kind are used by the fresh-water angler for the capture of catfish, eels, 
the percoids, &c. At sea the flesh of the porpoise and other cetaceans 
is not unfrequently relied upon for the capture of cod and halibut when 
other bait fails. 
Few persons realize the extent to which birds are sometimes employed 
as bait in the great offshore fisheries, the banker, when other bait 
fails, being able frequently to take large numbers of fish by the use as 
bait of the Procellaria, including petrels, fulmars, &c., as alsoof gulls, 
murres, &c. Most of these forms are easily caught on the hook, some- 
times as many as a thousand birds, and especially of the petrel family 
generally (Puffinus major), have been taken and used for bait by a single 
vessel on the Grand Bank. The gannets, penguins, cormorants, &c., are 
also taken in some parts of the world for a similar purpose. 
On this subject, Capt. J. W. Collins says: ‘+A few years ago, when 
many of the Grand Bankers went “shack fishing” and depended to a con- 
siderable extent on catching birds for bait, many thousands (mostly Puf- 
Jinus major) were caught and used by the crew of each vessel on a single 
trip. As these trips were sometimes three or four months in length, 
and it was often possible for the crew to catch several hundreds in a 
single day—indeed I have known of one man taking nearly a hundred 
in a few hours—it will readily be seen that an enormous amount of these 
birds must have been utilized in a single summer for this purpose.” 
There is but little, if any, use of the reptiles in the sea fisheries of the 
United States, although the frog is called into play in certain forms of 
fresh-water fishing. 
The various kinds of marine vertebrates constitute the chief portion 
of the sea-fishermaw’s bait, partly in consequence of their more ready 
availability, and partly because the fishes sought for are more accus- 
tomed to fish as food, and are more readily attracted to it. The other 
kinds of bait just mentioned come iiito play as substitutes, but can Wardly 
be considered as representing the regular resources of the North At- 
