AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1145 



wick, Prince Edward Island, and Lower Canada, and are chiefly taken 

 by Dominion fishermen, and used as bait, or sold as such to the Ameri- 

 cans. 



20. The food of the mackerel is various, depending upon the season. 

 A small fish called a shrimp, and another called brit, and small herring, 

 the season's spawn, are the food they generally feed on. These small 

 fish are found in the tide-rips, in the small bays, and oil' from points, 

 but close to shore, within half or quarter of a mile from shore or less. 

 That is where the mackerel are first found, after rising from spawning. 

 They feed there for a time, until they fatten, and then they begin to 

 move further off from shore, and, after getting fat, move southward 

 again. The mackerel breed along the coasts and in the bays of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick and Quebec. They go into shoal water to 

 spawn, unless disturbed. 



21. The privilege of transshipping their fish is a very valuable one to 

 American fishermen, because it saves so much of their time at the very 

 season when it is most valuable. In this way they are enabled to 

 make an extra trip at least, and some of the more fortunate two trips, 

 and, consequently, make very much larger catches. Without this privi- 

 lege I don't believe many of the Americans would prosecute the mackerel- 

 fishery on our coast. * * * I form this belief from my intercourse 

 with the American fishermen themselves. 



22. The privilege of fishing in the American waters is of no use or 

 benefit to Canadian fishermen. 



28. United States fishermen coming into our inshores professedly for 

 fishing purposes, take advantage of it to trade with the inhabitants, 

 and sell them large quantities of smuggled goods from the United 

 States. This is quite prevalent. 



29. I have been for the past four weeks ill from the effects of a tumor 

 which I have had removed from my throat, and am still in the doctor's 

 hands and unable with safety to move about much. 



JAS. A. NICKERSON. 



Sworn to at Halifax, in the Province of Nova Scotia, this day 



of July, A. D. 1877, before me. 



WM. ACKHURST, J. P. 



No. 38. 



In the matter of the Fisheries Commission at Halifax under the Treaty 



of Washington. 



I, JOHN L. INGBAHAM, of North Sydney, in the county of Cape Bre 

 ton, in the Province of Nova Scotia, fish merchant, make oath and say 

 as follows : 



1. I have been engaged in the business of fish merchant during the 

 past twenty years, and am at present so engaged ? and am well acquainted 

 with Canadian fishermen and American fishermen in this locality, also 

 with the buying and selling of fish, bait, ice, and fishermen's supplies, 



2. I have seen at one time two hundred American fishing vessels in 

 this harbor. In the summer of eighteen hundred and seventy six I 

 have seen as many as thirty at one time. lu these vessels there are 

 from ten to fifteen men each. 



3. These vessels fish often within one-half mile of the coast, north 

 and east of Cape Breton, and all around. 



3. They take from one hundred to five hundred barrels of mackerel 



