176 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
Q. That was not derived from us?—A. No. Travelers have found them in use when 
the first white men came among them. We have specimens in great number of the - 
trawl of the native savage. Ours have only been brought in within the last five or 
six years. I don’t think it is possible to fix the date of the first use of the trawl. 
They have been traced back to such a period that there is no possibility of saying 
that it was introduced by this man or known to that one. 
Q. What are the advantages of the method of trawl-fishing for cod ?—A. The al- 
leged advantages, as far as I have heard them spoken of, are the larger yield of the 
fishery. The same number of men in the same time, and in the same locality, will 
catch a larger fare of fish with the trawl than with hand-lines. Then they require 
less exposure of the fishermen. They can be set over night and left down through 
the day at times when the weather would be too inclement for hand-line fishing. 
Then it requires much less skillful fishermen to use the trawl than the hand-lines. 
It is merely a matter of putting on the bait and throwing it overboard, and it does 
not require the delicate manipulation and skill that the hand-line fishing does, and 
therefore does not call into play to the same extent the functions of the practiced 
fisherman. 
Q. Now, are there any disadvantages connected with the use of the trawl, alleged 
or actual?—A. There area great many accusations brought against it. How far 
these are valid it is impossible forme tosay. The principal objection I suppose is 
that it tempts all kinds of fish. One objection is that it takes fish that are too small 
size. They use a smaller hook than the ordinary hand-lines, and they say it takes a 
great many unmarketable fish, which affects the supply. Then another complaint is 
that the fish being longer in the water are liable to be destroyed by the depredations 
of sharks, dogfish, and fish of that class. Another objection is that after the fish are 
caught the marketable fish, owing to their weight, slip off from the small hook and 
float away and are lost. Another objection is that they catch what they call mother 
fish, that is the parent fish, which some fishermen think should be left to reproduce 
their kind. 
Q. If they are taken after depositing their spawn you only lose one fish?—A. Yes; 
but it is probable, judging from the testimony of fishermen, that the fish can be 
taken during their spawning season with a trawl when they will not bite a hook. 
As a general thing very few will bite on the ordinary line, but the trawl] bait is said 
to be attractive to them, and the fish are believed to be more likely to take the bait 
at that time from a trawl than from a hook on an ordinary line. 
Q. Well, taking the reasons given both ways, what conclusion have you come to 
about the use of the trawl for cod-fishing?—A. Well, it is just one of the wholesale modes 
of capture, which it is difficult to avoid, because the tendency is to centralize, to ac- 
complish the same work by less expenditure of money and of human force. 
Q. Do youthink it is a case for prohibition or regulation ?—A. I don’t see how it can 
be either prohibited or regulated. I hardly see. Ofcourse I have had no practical ex- 
perience. Imay say that the trawl] is used very much less on the coast of America than 
on the coast of England and of Europe generally, and I have failed to find anywhere in 
the English writers or in the testimony of the British Fishery Commission any complaint 
there such asoccurs inAmerica. There isa great complaint there against what is called 
the beam-trawl. When they speak of the trawl they don’t mean what we mean. 
What they refer to is a trawl such as we use in our steamer to capture flounders and 
such fish. Wherever you see the word trawl used by an English or European writer 
you must apply it to that large net that is dragged behind the vessel along the bot- 
tom of the sea, The word trawl is never applied in Europe to the line, and, there- 
fore, there is a great deal of vagueness and error involved in the consideration of the 
‘subject unless you know what the particular speaker or witness means by a trawl. 
But speaking of the long-line, which is the general term, or bultow, I have failed to 
find in the reports of the British Fishery Commission any complaint by anybody ex- 
cept three cases of complaint against the trawl-line or long-line. One was that it 
et aaa” 
