182 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Q. Do you think it strikes Wie coast a little later to tlie north aud a little earlier to 

 the south? — A. The left wing of the army, as we might call it, strikes the American 

 coast first, and the right wing strikes the Bay of St. Lawrence last ; but it comes in 

 with a broad sweep, not moving along the coast but coming in broadside. When the 

 quickening influence of the spring sun is felt on this great body of fish somewhere 

 outside, where I cannot say, they start, and the given temperature is reached sooner 

 at Cape Hatteras than at Bay St. Lawrence; but I do not believe that the fish that 

 enter the bay always skirt the American coast, nor do I believe that the American 

 fish go into the bay. They come in a large number of schools, each school represent- 

 ing a family, that is, they spawn together, and they may have a short lateral move- 

 ment, and they move a limited number of miles along the coast till they find a satis- 

 factory spawning-grouud ; but, as a general rule, they aggregate in three large 

 bodies; one of those bodies is about Block Island and Nantucket shoals, another is 

 in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy, and another in Bay St. Lawrence. There 

 are connections between those three bodies. You find them all along the coast ; there 

 are a certain number which spawn and are taken all along the coast ; they are caught 

 in weirs and pounds in spring and fall within one hundred yards of the shore ; but 

 the mass, as far as I can learn from the testimony presented before the Commission 

 are aggregated in those three great bodies. 



Q. Is anything known about their winter quarters? — A. Nothing definite. We 

 miss them for several months, from the end of November until March and April, and 

 we say, we guess, we suggest they go into the Gulf Stream. That they go somewhere 

 where they can find a temperature that suits them and there they remain, is clear ; 

 but it is a little remarkable that they never have been seen schooling in the Gulf 

 Stream, that they never have shown themselves, that no fisherman, mackereler, or 

 steamboat captain has ever reported, so far as my information goes, a school of mack- 

 erel in the winter season. If they were free swimmers, one would suppose they would 

 show themselves under such circumstances. There is a belief very generally enter- 

 tained among fishermen that they go into the mud and hybernate. That is an hy- 

 pothesis I have nothing to say against. It seems a little remarkable that so free a 

 swimmer as the mackerel should go into mud to spend its winter, but there is abun- 

 dance of analogy for it. Plenty of fish bury themselves in mud in the winter time and 

 go down two or three feet deep. There are fish that are so ready to bury themselves 

 in mud you can dig them out of an almost dry patch as you could potatoes. The 

 European tench, the Australian mud-fish, and dozens of species do that. There is 

 nothing whatever in the economy of the mackerel or in the economy of fish generally 

 against this idea, that it is an inhabitant of the mud. And the fishermen believe 

 chat the scale, which grows over the eyes, according to their account, in winter, is 

 intended to curb their natural impetuosity and make them more willing to go into 

 mud and stay there in winter and not be schooling out on the surface of the water. 

 There are well-authenticated cases of fish being taken from the mud between the 

 prongs of the jig when spearing for eels. That this has occurred otf the Nova Scotia 

 coast, in St. Margaret's Bay, and Bras d'Or, Cape Breton, and parts of the Bay of St. 

 Lawrence, I am assured is not at all doubtful. 



Q. Do not fishermen mainly retain the old theory of the northern set of the whole 

 body ? — A. Very largely, but I think latterly they are changing their views. 



By Hon. Mr. Kellogg : 

 Q. The fish were mackerel that were brought out of the mud ? — A. When after eels 

 they brought up mackerel out of the mud, in several instances, in January. 



By Mr. Dana : 



Q. What can you tell the Commission about the period of the spawning of mack- 

 erel? — A. Mackerelspawn almost immediately after they visit our shores. The ear- 

 liest fish taken in the weirs and pounds in Vineyard Sound and Buzzard's Bay are 

 full of ripe spawn, so that when the fish are taken out of the pounds and put into 

 boats to bring them to shore there are sometimes quarts and pecks of t e spawn in 



