REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [30] 



by sink-net fishing. The currents are constantly changing with the 

 seasons under the influence of temperature and prevailing winds, hence 

 the course of direction and depth of the food is constantly changing 

 also. 



"Sometimes it is carried far off from the land, at other times towards 

 it, and the mackerel schools following the food move first in one direc- 

 tion, then in another, and r;iuge from close inshore to fifty miles and 

 more seawards, and often, doubtless, at a considerable depth below the 

 surface. 



" The general direction of these movements, w T hen plotted on paper, 

 would be a series of irregular circles or elongated ellipses, the range of 

 each school or group of schools being opposite, and often adjacent to 

 that part of the coast where they spawn. 



"As the fall approaches, owing to the diminution in the supply of 

 their floating food out at sea, they come more inland. 



'•All the free-swimming larval forms of most species of shrimps, 

 crabs, lobsters, sea-urchins, starfish, sea-worms, &c, have disappeared 

 in the open sea, after passing through their final transformation. But 

 near the shore there are great numbers of other forms of life, which are 

 developed later in the year. Coming inshore to feed on these on the 

 Atlantic coast, the mackerel are found by American fishermen later 

 and later on their return voyage to the southwest, whicli gives rise to 

 the impression that they are following the schools, when they are only 

 meeting with fresh schools approaching the shore from their feeding 

 grounds. Similar movements occur on the Atlantic coast of Nova 

 Scotia and Cape Breton. As winter approaches, beginning at Cape 

 Breton in November, the different schools retire to their winter homes 

 off the coast in deep water later and later from north to south. 



" In the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where land is, as it were, on all sides, 

 the local schools come from their winter haunts to the banks and beaches 

 of the Magdalens. of Prince Edward Island, in the Bay Chaleur, &c, 

 to spawn about the first week in June. They retire after spawning lo 

 deep water, and meet the incoming sand-launce. They follow the sand- 

 launce inshore or on to banks, and for some weeks feed on these fish. 

 When the sand-launce again retires to deep water, the season of the 

 small crustaceans has arrived, and these by tidal action, already de- 

 scribed, and winds, are concentrated near the coast lines of Prince Ed- 

 ward Island, New Brunswick, the north and south shore of the Estuary 

 and Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the shores of Cape Breton. On all 

 these coasts the effect of the single ami continent tides, dragging along 

 the coast line and retarded by it, is to produce eddies, where tin 1 free- 

 swimming food concentrates. The course of direction of the different 

 schools during the summer is thus dependent upon winds and tides, 

 and their movements would, if correctly plotted, resemble long narrow 

 ellipses. adjacent to the coast, which are doubtless many times repeated. 



"At the approach of winter the different schools seek their winter 

 quarters opposite and near to the places where they spawned in the 



