366 APPENDIX. 



weighted cast-nets could frighten the remainder from the shore. 

 They appeared impelled to push in by strong instinct, and even when 

 wounded and dying from being struck by the lead weights of the net, 

 their heads would still point to the beach. We could readily capture 

 them with our hands as they swam close in, scarcely wetting our 

 feet. The sand and gravel of the beach was mixed with a large pro- 

 portion of spawn ; I found the latter in the stomachs of several of 

 the males which I opened. 



As has been stated, the primary and most important use of the 

 caplin in Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Gulf is as bait for the 

 cod. During the spring the fish has been taken, both on the banks 

 and along shore, by herring, but in inconsiderable numbers ; now, 

 however, they look for their gi-eat annual glut, and caplin alone will 

 take them. Every shore boat must have its fresh caplin, as well as 

 €very Frenchman on the banks. It is the bait of the hook-and-line 

 fisherman as well as for the destructive bultow. Were the supply of 

 caplin withheld fi-om the French, their great fishery fleet could do 

 nothing, as, having exhausted the supply from their own islands of 

 , St. Pierre and Miquelon, by taking and wasting the fish with too 

 great prodigality, they are now entirely dependent on the supply 

 from the harbours of the main island. 



It is evident that any material and permanent decrease of this bait 

 must tell directly on the fisheries. The caplin may, as has been 

 proved, be so thinned by wholesale destruction whilst spawning on 

 the beach, whilst many are driven off and compelled to drop their 

 spawn in deep water, where it will not vivify, as finally to desert a 

 locality for ever. On many parts of the Newfoundland coast this has 

 been the case, and Perley states that the cod fishery of the Bay of 

 Chaleur has greatly fallen off since the caplin have almost ceased to 

 visit parts of it, and many houses in consequence found it necessary 

 to break up their establishments. The great complaints of the 

 scarcity of bait along the western shore of Newfoundland are owing to 

 the complete failure of a celebrated baiting place at Lamaline, where 

 formerly the strand looked like a bed of spawn, but now is completely 

 ruined, the caplin no sooner approaching the shore than they were 

 hauled before they had time to spawn. In fact little argument is re- 

 quired to prove that the cod fishery must stand or fall with the supply 

 of caplin. The wasteful practice of manuring the land with caplin is 

 another incentive to taking the fish wantonly. Not only are the 

 dead fish, which are strewn in myriads on the beaches, collected for 

 manure, but live fish are hauled for the same purpose, and hundreds 



