2808 AWAED OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



reasonable length of time, or very nearly the same time, on all that ex- 

 tent of coast. 



Q. Do you think it strikes the coast a little later to the north and a 

 little earlier to the south ? A. The left wing of the army, as we might 

 call it, strikes the American coast first, and the right wing strikes the 

 Bay of St. Lawrence last; but it comes in with a broad sweep, not mov- 

 ing along the coast but coming in broadside. When the quickening in- 

 fluence of the spring sun is felt on this great body of fish somewhere 

 outside, where I cannot say, they start, and the given temperature is 

 reached sooner at Cape Hatteras than at Bay St. Lawrence; but I do 

 not believe that the fish that enter the bay always skirt the American 

 coast, nor do I believe that the American fish go iuto the bay. They 

 come in a large number of schools, each school representing a family, 

 that is, they spawn together, and they may have a short lateral move- 

 ment, and may move a limited number of miles along the coast till they 

 find a satisfactory spawning ground ; but, as a general rule, they aggre- 

 gate in three large bodies; one of those bodies is about Block Island and 

 Nantucket shoals, another is in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fuudy, 

 and another in Bay St. Lawrence. There are connections between those 

 three bodies. You find them all along the coast ; there are a certain 

 number which spawn and are taken all along the coast; they are 

 caught in weirs and pounds in spring and fall within one hundred yards 

 of the shore ; but the mass, as far as I can learn from the testimony pre- 

 sented before the Commission, are aggregated in those three great bodies. 



Q. Is anything known about their winter quarters? A. Nothing 

 definite. We miss them for several months, from the end of November 

 until March and April, and we say, we guess, we suggest they go into 

 the Gulf Stream. That they go somewhere where they can find a tem- 

 perature that suits them and there they remain, is clear ; but it is a little 

 remarkable that they never have been seen schooling in the Gulf Stream, 

 that they never have shown themselves, that no fisherman, mackereler, 

 or steamboat captain has ever reported, so far as my information goes, 

 a school of mackerel in the winter season. If they were free swimmers, 

 one would suppose they would show themselves under such circum- 

 staces. There is a belief very generally entertained among fishermen 

 that they go into the mud and hybernate. That is an hypothesis I have 

 nothing to say against. It seems a little remarkable that so free a 

 swimmer as the mackerel should go into mud to spend its winter, bat 

 there is abundance of analogy for it. Plenty of fish bury themselves in 

 mud in the winter time and go down two or three feet deep. There are 

 fish that are so ready to bury themselves in mud you can dig them oat 

 of an almost dry patch as you could potatoes. The European tench, 

 the Australian mud-fish, and dozens of species do that. There is nothing 

 whatever in the economy of the mackerel or in the economy of fish gen- 

 erally against this idea, that it is an inhabitant of the mud. And the 

 fishermen believe that the scale, which grows over the eyes, according 

 to their account, in winter, is intended to curb their natural impetuosity 

 and make them more willing to go into mud and stay there in winter 

 and not be schooling out on the surface of the water. There are well- 

 authenticated cases of fish being taken from the mud between the prongs 

 of the jig when spearing for eels. That this has occurred oif the Nova ' 

 Scotia coast, in St. Margaret's Bay and Bras d'Or, Cape Breton, and 

 parts of the Bay of St. Lawrence, I am assured is not at all doubtful. 



Q. Do not fishermen mainly retain the old theory of the northern set 

 of the whole body ? A. Very largely, but I think latterly they are 

 changing their views. 



