12* REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISIIERir.S. 



October. A nnmber of hours was spent each day in the court room 

 listening to the testimony and rendering such assistance to t^ie Ameri- 

 can eommissioner as circumstances made necessary. I was myself called 

 as a witness, several days being spent under direct or cross-examination. 

 The progress of the investigations of the commission involved not merely 

 jjoints relating to the violation of the fishery laws and the injury done 

 to fisheries of the two countries respectively, but also all imaginable 

 conditions attendant ui)0u their prosecution, and especially certain 

 alleged improper modes of pursuit and capture. The use of the trawl 

 or long line by the Americans on the British shores had been made a 

 source of grave complaint^and constituted one of the charges in the in- 

 dictment against the United States, as also the employment of the 

 purse-seine for the capture of mackerel. The question, therefore, of ^he 

 actual influence of these engines on the fisheries had to be considered 

 very minutely, and a great deal of argument was expended on opi)osite 

 sides in the discussion. 



Many interesting points as to the habits of the food-fishes, their mi- 

 grations generally, their mode of spawning, i)eriod of development, »S:;c., 

 were also elicited ; and although the evidence given was very contradic- 

 tory, it has been possible in sifting it to get out a large number of facts 

 of great biological and practical inii)ortance. Much noteworthy inform- 

 ation in these respects was obtained from Capt. Nathaniel Atwood, of 

 Provincetown, and Mr. Simeon F. Cheney, of Grand Menan ; these two 

 gentlemen having for a long period of years carefully noted and recorded 

 many facts previously unknown to naturalists. The migrations of the 

 mackerel were made the subject of special study, and a large map was 

 prepared and exhibited in the council chamber in which the meeting was 

 held, sho'udng tlie periodical movements of the mackerel schools, the loca- 

 tion of the spawning-grounds, and the dates of the season of reproduc- 

 tion. Most of the data for this were furnished by Capt. E. H. Hulbert. 



The data obtained at the Halifax Convention and otherwise will be 

 used hereafter in i)reparing a systematic and methodical account of the 

 sea-fisheries of Eastern North America, and will include, first, the nat- 

 ural history of the fish themselves ; second, an account of all the methods 

 of pursuit and capture ; third, the mode of preparation for market and 

 for shipment ; and fourth, the general statistics of the whole subject. 



As already intimated, the American side labored under a serious dis- 

 advantage for want of methodical and regular statistics of the fisheries 

 of the United States. The case was quite different, however, with the 

 other party. The authorities of Canada had for many years kept and 

 published annually an extremely exhaustive account of everything taken 

 in their fisheries, giving the number of each kind of fish taken and pre- 

 served in each province, county, and district, as also the exportations 

 to foreign countries, including the United States.* The Minister of 



* The miuuteness witli which this method is carried out is ilhistrated in report of 

 Mr. Whitcher, commissiouer of fisheries for the Dominion of Canada, which, for the 



