AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1353 



Sworn, to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief, at Port 

 Daniel, county of Bonaventure, Province of Quebec, Dominion' of Can- 

 ada, this 23d day of July, A. D. 1877, before me. 



X. LAVOIK, 



Justice of the Peace, Province o 



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



of Washington. 



I, SIXTE LAFRANCE, of Amherst Harbor, Amherst Island, Magdalen 

 Islands, county of Gaspe, Province of Quebec, make oath and 'say as 

 follows : 



1. I am 67 years of age, and I have lived here for -48 years, and I have 

 fished during all that time, though for the last seven or eight years I 

 have not fished much. I am well and practi3ally acquainted with the 

 fisheries carried on iu Pleasant Bay, off Amherst Harbor, and around 

 these islands. 



2. The herring spawn in great abundance in Pleasant Bay and Am- 

 herst Harbor and all around the islands, and they have never failed to 

 come and spawn here every year, as above stated, since I first came 

 here. They spawn in shallow water, on the flats of Amherst Harbor, 

 in among the seaweed, where at low water there is not more than one 

 foot of water over the spawn. Their spawn is generally attached to the 

 seaweed. In Pleasant Bay and around the islands they spawn in from 

 half a fathom to two fathoms water. They spawn in May, and during 

 the spawning season, when the weather is fine and the sea calm, the sea 

 over the spawning ground gets white like milk; this is caused by the 

 milt of the male fish. Towards the end of August and in September, 

 large quantities of small herring about two inches long are seen in the 

 harbor and in Pleasant Bay ; these fish keep in small schools. Towards 

 evening they come inshore, while in day-time they seem to go out to sea. 

 The mackerel feed on them, and when the fishermen are fishing for mack- 

 erel in the bay, and when they see schools of small herring pass by their 



'boats, they know that the schools of mackerel are near at hand, and get 

 ready for them. 



3. Ever since I came here, I have seen every year large numbers of 

 American schooners fishing for herring with seines, and 1 have seen as 

 many as 150 of them at one time. About 25 years ago they used to load 

 and take away from 800 to 1,100 barrels each. They used to take the 

 herring with seines; they used to draw their seines ashore, and the men 

 went on the land to draw the seines. They used also to dry their seines 

 on shore, when their voyage was completed. I have seen myself one 

 haul of a seiue for herring load two American schooners of at least 

 1,000 barrels each, and this was not a rare occurrence ; and I know that 

 as many as 3,000 barrels have been taken in one haul. I have seen 

 seines that had been drawn near the shore, moored for three days; that 

 is, as long as the fine weather lasted, and the schooners that were part 

 ners in the seine, sometimes six in number, used to send their boats 

 take out the fish' with dip-nets. When the bad weather came on 

 were obliged to tip the seine and allow the fish to go, some of them si 

 alive, but most of them dead and of course lost. 



4. If the Americans had not the right of landing on our shores, tl 

 would not be able to draw their seines ashore. 



5. Mackerel are found in great abundance sometimes, at other 



