136 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



heat slowly in proportion to their size. It is a common occurrence for 

 moose, reindeer, and other large mammals when killed in a very cold at- 

 mosphere to become putrid internally in a few hours, although the ex- 

 terior may be frozen stiff. The remedy here is probably immediate dis- 

 emboweling. It is said that halibut cannot be frozen stiff and dry to 

 advantage from the tendency to spoiling in the interior. 



It is not an uncommon thing for fishermen on the banks to re- 

 new their supply of ice for bait from the floating icebergs. They do 

 not usually venture on a large berg for this purpose ; but generally 

 there are to be found in its vicinity fragments of greater or less size 

 which have been broken off from the main mass and are easily secured. 

 The supply of fresh water, too, is not unfrequently obtained in a similar 

 manner. 



Desiccation. — Desiccation, or drying, comes next to cold, either natural 

 or artificial, as a method for preserving fish for food or bait, and, indeed, is 

 sometimes more available. This consists, in the simplest form, in the ex- 

 posure of the fish, usually split to some extent, to a dry atmosphere or the 

 sun, causing the evaporation of the moisture to a greater or less degree. 

 Sometimes this process is accelerated by the application of artificial 

 heat, which causes a more speedy evaporation of the moisture. A. cur- 

 rent of air, either warm or cold, made to play over the fish, carries on 

 the work very rapidly. Quite recently the production of this current 

 of dry air by cold has been called into service, and with very excellent 

 results, the flesh not being altered in any way, and the desiccation be- 

 ing rapid and thorough. Of late years artificial processes of desicca- 

 tion have been multiplied, and are being applied to all forms of marine 

 products, including oysters, clams, lobsters, shrimps, &c, as well as 

 fishes themselves. Of course the use of a similar method for preserv- 

 ing vegetables and the flesh of land animals is familiar to every one. 

 The preservation of bait by drying has not been very general ; but it 

 seems probable that when the application of the desiccating process 

 comes to be more economically applied, it can be called into play to 

 very great advantage. 



A writer in the Newfoundland Chronicle for September, 1877, speak- 

 ing of squid bait, remarks that during the squid season, which usually 

 lasts about six weeks, there is no other bait so attractive to codfish, and 

 that even when salted it is preferred by the fish to fresh herring. He 

 suggests that the proper method of preparing the squid so as to be 

 available under all circumstances and at all seasons is to wash and dry 

 it as soon as possible in the sun and without salt. He does not state, 

 however, whether the experiment has actually been tried. 



If the bait thus prepared proves to be attractive to the fish there will 

 be no difficulty, if it cannot be readily dried in the atmosphere of New 

 England, in doing this by means of some of the patent desiccating 

 processes. 



Considerable quantities of squid are dried on the coast of Newfound- 



