2010 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Khode Island legislature in the January session of 1872 ? A. Yes, I 

 think so. 



Q. You used this language, I think I read from an "Abstract of an 

 address by Capt. Nathaniel E. Atwood in opposition to legislation, be- 

 fore the senate committee of Ithode Island legislature,* January session, 

 1872:" 



We find upon examination that changes take place in a series of years in the great 

 category of fishes for which we can assign no reason. In Massachusetts Bay and along 

 the coast of our State the kinds of fish are not the same to-day that they were in the 

 days of our boyhood. Those that were most abundant then have suffered great dimi- 

 nution and sometimes have totally disappeared perhaps never to return ; while other 

 varieties have perhaps after gradually diminishing more and more for a series of years, 

 increased again and become as abundant as before. Other species have come among 

 us that were utterly unknown in our youthful years. 



Q. These statements you still indorse I A. I think so. Yes. Changes 

 are constantly taking place. 



Q. When you fished in the Bay St. Lawrence for mackerel it was an 

 inshore fishery, was it not ? A. The Bay St. Lawrence ? Some fished 

 inshore, I think. We fished within three miles at Magdalen Islands 

 the greatest part of our fishing. 



Q. You don't wish us to understand that Magdalen Islands is the 

 only place where they came within three miles ? A. No. 



Q. I suppose the habits that fish exhibit there they exhibit elsewhere 

 as well? A. I suppose so. I think the mackerel come inshore at Prince 

 Edward Island and down the northern part of Cape Breton Island, and 

 in the Strait of Canso they pass through that in migrating off the 

 coast that is, part of them do. 



Q. At Sydney is not that an inshore fishery too? A. I suppose they 

 come inshore there. The other side of Scatarie, at Louisburg, I have 

 harbored there. They had some nets, the people that belonged there, 

 and they caught some very fine mackerel in September. 



Q. Did you ever pursue the mackerel fishing at any time in your life 

 on the American coast in boats f A. No, not to any great extent besides 

 netting. 



Q. Did you take them within three miles ? A. Yes, some, and some 

 farther off. We have a bay from our town to Barnstable and Plymouth, 

 twenty-one miles broad. If we are half way across we are ten miles off. 

 Well, we fish very close to the shore there, and we drift anywhere and 

 everywhere that we can catch mackerel. 



Q. In those days it was an inshore fishery ? A. It was so far as that 

 netting was concerned, and then around in Provincetown Harbor. 



Q. Those that were taken with hook and line were taken within three 

 miles in those days ? A. We used to catch some also outside, and most 

 of our mackerel-fishing in vessels we caught outside of three miles. 



Q. That is of late years ? A. O ! it used to be so too. Sometimes we 

 would go very close inshore, or sometimes we would be half way off to 

 Cape Ann ; that is twenty-five miles, and we would fish away out to 

 Mount Desert and Cashes Ledges. I have been for mackerel one sum- 

 mer in a small vessel, and we took where we could not see the laud even 

 on a clear day. I did see Mount Desert, that was very high, and you 

 could see it a good way off. 



Q. You are aware, of course, of the years over which the Eeciprocity 

 Treaty run ? A. I am pretty well aware of it ; I know when it termi- 

 nated, and I think it lasted eleven years ; it terminated in 1866. I was 

 sent as a delegate to Washington when it was abrogated. 



Q. To get it renewed again ! A. No ; I went there because we were 

 a fishing place, and they thought it their duty to send a delegate there. 



