AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1437 



shipped in Charlottetown, and sent the mackerel on by the Alhamhra 

 and other steamers. We never lost anything by sending the ii.-li on in 

 this way, and we made money by catching good prices. 



JAMES MCDONALD. 



Sworn to at Souris, King's County, Prince Edward Inland, tins '2lnt 

 day of July, A. D. 1877, before me, the words opposite my initials being 

 first interlined or erased. 



JAMES K. MCLEAN, ./. r. 



No. 305. 



I, DANIEL McCoRMACK, of Black Bush, in Township Number Forty- 

 five, in King's County, Prince Edward Island, fisherman, make oatU 

 and say : 



1. That I have been engaged in fishing in schooners for ten or eleven 

 years, in both Island and American schooners, and have fished all down 

 this gnlf, and for three years mackerel and cod fishing on the American 

 coast, and I know the fishing-grounds well. 



2. That the first five years I was down here in Americans we used to 

 get from seven to nine hundred barrels of mackerel each season. I was 

 in a small vessel. In 1871, or the year the cutters were around, I wan 

 down in the Annie Lewis, from Maine, and we only got one hundred and 

 forty barrels ; the reason we got so few was that the cutters kept its 

 away from the shore, and the mackerel were on shore so we could not 

 get good catches. 



3. In the year 1874, I was down here part of the year on board the 

 Clytie, and that season she got five hundred and forty barrels of mack- 

 erel. These fish were caught right in as close as we could get to the 

 shore. 



4. That I fished for some time on the American coast-, and the seining 

 there has destroyed the fishing. The seines both frighten the tish and 

 kill large quantities of them. This year and last there have been no 

 tish to be had there, they having been frightened away or destroyed by 

 the seines. Tne seines take a large body of fish, both large and small, 

 and they can only cure a small quantity of them, and the rest, including 

 all the small fish, are thrown overboard and sink to the bottom. These 

 fish rot at the bottom and poison the other tish or drive them away. 

 I believe, and all practical fishermen believe, that this seining has been 

 the cause of the breaking up and destroying of the American fisheries. 

 Their fisheries are not now worth much for that reason. They are only 

 now beginning to seine round here now. When we left their shores on 

 the fourth of this mouth, the Americans were intending to come down 

 here with their whole fleet, as they could not get any mackerel on their 

 own grounds. 



o. That the right to transship here is of great advantage to t 

 Americans, as they save nearly three weeks, as a rule, by being able t 

 land and transship here instead of haviug to take their fish home 1 in 

 their own vessels. This would be equal to another trip in the summer 

 They can also refit here cheaper than they can at home. I have k 

 some of them come down here and tit out instead of doing so at home, 

 on account of its being cheaper. 



0. That, judging from my own experience of the two coast 

 opinion that it would not pay the island or Canadian vessels t< 

 for fishing on the American shores. 



DANIEL MOCOBMACK. 



