3G4 APPENDIX. 



side, and when the surf offers, they all force themselves with great 

 swiftness on the beach, taking particular care that the female is kept 

 in the middle, and by thus compressing her the object of their visit 

 is accomplished. Many repetitions are undoubtedly required. The 

 three caplin then separate, and struggle back into the ocean with a 

 receding wave. It is difl&cult to say in what precise manner the 

 processes or ridges of the male are used ; probably some amount of 

 downward pressure is exerted through their aid in running on the 

 sand, and the female is assisted thereby in exuding the ripe and 

 readily expressed spawn. 



The caplin arrives at its spawning beaches on the south-east coasts 

 of Newfoundland, about the 20th June, and remains close inshore for 

 about five weeks ; beyond this period the fish is rarely seen or taken 

 under any circumstances. The warm days with light fogs occurring 

 at this season are looked upon by the expectant fishermen as favour- 

 able to their striking in; they call such days "caplin weather." 

 Now all is rivalry as to who shall get the first haul for bait ; a bucket 

 full would command any price — like new potatoes at Covent Garden 

 . or the first salmon at Boston. In a few days' time they will be 

 rolled over the roads by strings of carts, selling at 35. a load, and 

 exported by thousands of barrels to the eager French fishermen on 

 the Banks ; for now is the great banquet of the cod, and herring and 

 clam, mackerel and sardine, are each refused for the new and delicate 

 morsel. It was the height of the caplin season when I arrived in St. 

 John's one summer. Caplin were being wheeled through the streets, 

 caught in tubs, buckets, and ladled up in scoops by everybody from 

 the wharves of the town ; the air was strongly impregnated with the 

 smell of caplin ; they were scattered about in the streets, and you 

 trod on or drove over them everywhere. The fish-flakes, roofs of 

 houses, and little improvised stages attached to nearly every dwelling 

 were strewn with caplin drying in the sun. In the country, on the 

 roads to the out-harbours, a continual stream of carts was passing 

 loaded with glittering cargoes of fish, the whole mass moving together 

 like a jelly, and so likely to spill over the sides that division boards 

 are placed across the cart to separate the fish into two masses, and 

 thus keep them steadier. In the fields men were engaged in spreading 

 them broadcast, or sowing them in drills with potatoes ; whilst others 

 were storing them for manure by burying enormous masses of fish in 

 mounds of earth. But it is on the beach only that a just conception 

 can be formed of the great multitudes in which this fish approaches 

 the shore, when sometimes the surface of the water appears as a 



