338 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



fishermen seem to admit that after sweeping the seine they have to 

 change their ground, whilst they might have continued hooking suc- 

 cessfully for some time longer had they not made the haul of the 

 seine. 



This purse seine fishing is in one sense like prospecting for gold or 

 boring for oil, it being purely a speculative business, in which there 

 still certainly remain a few prizes, but in which there are very many 

 blanks; but each crew looks forward to making a big haul, and not 

 to the continuous work which the hook and line fishing imposes on 

 the men. As an instance of the prizes made, one vessel, the " Emma 

 W. Brown," of Gloucester, got one hundred and sixty barrels of sea- 

 packed mackerel at a single haul of her seine, which, at the extraor- 

 dinary prices which have prevailed, would mean a take worth nearly 

 four thousand dollars, or, say, upwards of one hundred dollars per 

 man. 



Another vessel, the " Mayflower " of Gloucester, made a somewhat 

 similar haul, but these were the only two fortunate schooners in the 

 whole fleet; yet the effect of these two hauls was to keep many of 

 the fleet down on our coasts for some weeks later than they other- 

 wise would have been. 



One marked and of late years somewhat unusual feature of this 

 season's fishing was the run of fine mackerel which struck in on the 

 Nova Scotia coasts during the earlier half of November. These 

 were exceptionally large and fine fish, and would, in some instances 

 that come under my notice, run from 130 to 160 fish to the packed 

 barrel. I estimate that about three thousand barrels were taken of 

 this fall run ; and as many of them were marketed fresh in ice, this 

 run was worth nearly sixty thousand dollars to the fishermen. In 

 some parts of the coast this lot of fish when netted were considerably 

 damaged by squid, which actually eat the fish after they are meshed 

 in the nets, never totally consuming a whole fish, but eating a piece 

 out of one and then testing the flavour of a second, till in some in- 

 stances quite a serious proportion of the fish were damaged. 



The Canadian mackerel net fishery by boats from the shore, and 

 the net fishery by small schooners, requires regulation. This subject 

 will be dealt with more fully in another part of the report. Suffice 

 it to say, that the two great points which it is desirable to attain are, 

 first, the marking with registered marks all nets or other fishing 

 buoys, and second, the absolute prohibition of day fishing by drift 

 nets, say between the hours of 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. 



In concluding these remarks on the mackerel fishery, I would state 

 again that the additional experience which I have acquired only con- 

 firms my opinion as to the desirability, almost the necessity, of the 

 prohibition, or at any rate the limitation, of the use of the purse seine. 



To be really effectual, any arrangement must be of an international 



character; and I am of opinion that the majority of both Canadian 



and United States' fishermen would be willing to accept some such 



arrangement as that suggested, at any rate tentatively, for a 



205 period of five years, and they would readily admit that, whilst 



it might in the first instance be the occasion of loss to those of 



them who owned their seines and vessels, some such regulation of the 



fishing is most desirable. 



