3988 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. What is the food of mackerel, and where is it found ? A. We find 

 .small fish in mackerel, and sometimes they do not seem to have any food 

 in their stomachs. One species of food found in mackerel is a small fish, 

 -very much elongated, which is called variously the sand-eel or lantz. I have 

 found them 20 miles off shore in Massachusetts Bay, and they are also 

 to be found around our coast in the offings. About all our fishing folks 

 there call them the sand-eel, but down on the coast of Labrador just such 

 a looking animal is called the lantz, and on the Grand Bank, where they 

 .are to be met with in vast abundance, they are also called the lantz. 



Q. Then this lantz or sand-eel is not the exclusive property of inshore 

 places'? A. We fiud the same inshore in Provincetown harbor some- 

 times. They go down into the sand very rapidly, and by cutting along 

 the sand-bars with a knife they can be made to jump out. 



Q. You say that they are enormously abundant on the Grand Banks ? 

 .A. A fish that looks like them is to be seen there, but whether it is the 

 lautz or sand eel, or whether it is a distinct and different species, I would 

 not pretend to say. Scientific men will, perhaps, be able to settle that 

 point. That is one kind of bait. Another kind is young herring. We 

 :find them in the mackerel, which also feed on the young of their own 

 species, which they devour so long as they are small enough to be swal- 

 lowed. I have seen a mackerel with young mackerel in its stomach, and 

 the caudal fin or tail sticking out of the large fish some little distance. 

 Uven then these mackerel would bite at the hook, for they seem to have 

 .good appetites. Everywhere I have fished there is also to be found in 

 the mackerel what I believe to be, and what I think scientific men have 

 told me, is a species of crustacean, belonging to the class of lobsters, 

 crabs, &c., our fishermen sometimes call them Cayenne, but I do not 

 .pretend to know just what they are. 



Q. Does it go by the name of brit? A. Xo. What we call brit is a 

 mall fish, and what is called brit in other places is not a fish at all, but 

 another sort of an animal. What we sometimes term brit is the little 

 lierring which the mackerel eat. This is the young of what we call sea- 

 herring. 



This has been described by some naturalists as a distinct species of 

 fish. Professor Peak, of Xew Hampshire, many years ago called it the 

 <J\apea minima, a distinct species, but I consider them to be the young 

 of the herring. Besides these kinds of bait, the stomachs of mackerel 

 are found tilled with a very small red substance. In a load of mackerel 

 this is sometimes the only food found in them. It seems to be a great 

 favorite as food amongst these fish. 



Q. Are any of these species of food which mackerel eat to be found 

 away off in the ocean ? A. I have found the little crustaceans, which I 

 mentioned, everywhere that I have fished for mackerel, in considerable 

 abundance. Though voracious feeders, they will sometimes not bite 

 when they have nothing in their stomachs; it would, however, be too 

 Jong a story to tell you about their habits as to the minor details. 



Q. Is the food of mackerel to be found miles and miles off shore? A. 

 Yes. There are herrings which spawn in certain localities along our 

 coast about this time. The same species spawned around the Magdalen 

 Islands last spring. They spawn up here outside of Boston light and 

 away down along the coast of Maine in October; and probably the 

 young of this species are more plentiful inshore than at any great 

 distance from the land ; but the young of these fish do wander away 

 from the shore. One thing I do know in this relation is this that the 

 young produced from this spawn deposited this fall is found next spring 





