JST DIX Q. 



TESTIMONY IN REBUTTAL ON BEHALF OF HER BRITAN- 

 NIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT. 



No. 1. 



THUR.^DAY, October 25. 

 The Conference met. 



Prof. HENRY YOULE HIND was called on behalf of the Government 

 of Her Britannic Majesty, sworn and examined. 



By Mr. Thomson : 



Question. Have you made a specialty of examining into marine mat- 

 ters, the effect of tides and winds, the habits of fish, and such things f 

 Answer. Yes. 



Q. Fora number of years back? A. Yes; for a number of years, 

 more particularly from the year 1861. 



Q. You devoted your attention specially to that subject ? A. Yes ; 

 especially to the subject of marine physics or ocean physics. 



Q. Bo you belong to any learned society ? A. No ; not any specially 

 learned society. 



Q. Now, Mr. Hind, you have made a special study of the action of 

 the Arctic current on the American coast and in the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence? A. Yes. 



Q. Also the effect of the Gulf Stream ? A. Yes ; I have. 



Q. Well, now, you have also, I believe, paid attention to the habits of 

 the mackerel and cod ? A. Yes. 



Q. Now, take the mackerel. Will you state, if you please, in your 

 judgment, what is the habit of the fish in reference to hibernating? 

 A. I think there can be little, if any doubt, that the mackerel, in all our 

 seas, and in some European seas, hibernates, or passes a certain period 

 of the winter in a condition of torpidity in sand banks or mud holes, 

 either close inshore, or far off the coast. For instance, on various parts 

 of the Nova Scotia coast, they have been taken from the mud through 

 the ice, in the act of spearing for eels, as, for instance, on our immediate 

 shore at St. Margaret's Bay, and the Bay of Inhabitants in Cape Breton. 

 They have also been found on the coast of Newfoundland at Christmas, 

 driven ashore there by the ice, or the wind, with what the fishermen 

 call a scale over the eyes. 1 need scarcely say there is no snch thing as 

 a scale, in the ordinary sense of the term, but this is a film that forms 

 over the eyes, and can always be seen in the spring of the year. The 

 object of this film is evidently to protect the eye of the animal during 

 their winter torpidity from parasitic crustaceans. There is an order of 

 parasitic animals in the Northern Seas, specially belonging to the class 

 of Leniieida, which attack the eyes of fishes, particularly the eyes of the 

 shark. You very rarely, for instance, get a shark, without finding one 

 of these parasitical creatures attached to the eye. They feed on the eye 

 as others do upon the gills, and it appears to me that the object of this 

 film is specially to protect the eye. when the head is partially immersed 

 in the mud or sand. 



Q. From that you infer that the mackerel is not what is ordinarily 

 termed a migratory fish ? A. No ; it is a local fish, frequenting the 



