EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [4] 



as Little Mecattina on the adjoining coast, latitude 505° north, and even 

 sometimes enter the Straits of Belle Isle.* 



Perley says that they are rarely known to visit the coast of Labrador. 

 H. E. Storer, after carefully studying the fauna of Southern Labrador, 

 in 1849, came to the conclusion that they were sometimes found at Little 

 Mecattina. 



In the various reports of the Canadian inspectors of fisheries on the 

 Labrador coast from 18G1 to 1870 may be found evideuce that mack- 

 erel are rarely taken even on the Labrador coast of the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawreuce. 



Professor Verrill, who visited Anticosti and Mingan in 1861, was un- 

 able to find any mackerel in the waters of that region, although the 

 best methods of catching them were often used. 



Some years ago mackerel were abundant in the Bay of Fundy, as 

 many as twelve vessels from Eastport, besides others, being engaged in 

 their capture, chiefly about Digby and Saint Mary's Bay. They have 

 now so completely disappeared as not to form an item in the commercial 

 record of the catch. 



The species is found throughout the entire length of the ISTorwegian 

 coast from the Christiana Fjord to the North Cape and Varenger Fjord, 

 latitude 71°. 



It occurs on the south coast of Sweden, and, entering the Baltic, is 

 found along the shores of Eastern Denmark and Eastern Prussia, and 

 also abundantly in the German Ocean and the English Channel, as well 

 as everywhere in all parts of the British Isles, and southward to the 

 Mediterranean, where it abounds, especially in the Adriatic. There is 

 no record of its capture in Africa, South America, in the West Indies, 

 Gulf of Mexico, or even about the Bermudas. 



The mackerel, then, would appear to be a shore-loving fish, not ad- 

 dicted to wide wanderings in the ocean, and with range limited in the 

 Western Atlantic between latitudes 35° and 50° ; in the Eastern Atlantic 

 between 30° and 71°. 



* In 1860 Capt. Peter Avery, of the schooner Alabama, of Provincetown, took 100 bar- 

 rels of fat mackerel at Port an Port, Newfoundland. Captain Atwood, however, has 

 seen them at the Bay of Islands. He has also seen large schools at Mecattina. 



Capt. J. W. Collins writes : 



"As early as 1836, Capt. Stephen Rich, in the schooner "Good Hope", of Glou- 

 cester, spent almost the entire mackerel-fishing season on the coast of Labrador in 

 pursuit of mackerel. He was induced by the reports brought him by the Labrador 

 cod-fishermen to make this attempt. They had reported seeing mackerel abundant 

 in the vicinity of the Straits of Belle Isle, and Captain Rich being of an adventurous 

 turn decided to devote one summer to the investigation of the subject, feeling in hopes 

 of obtaining a large catch. My father was one of the crew, and I lytve often heard 

 him tell that the trip was entirely unsuccessful, notwithstanding the fact that they 

 cruised all the way from Mecattina Islands through the Straits of Belle Isle, and on 

 the northwest coast of Newfoundland as far down as the Bay of Islands. Few or no 

 mackerel were taken until the vessel returned in the fall to the southern part of the 

 Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where a small fare was obtained in a few weeks' fishing." 



