546 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



of July capelin spawn was brought up from the bottom in twenty-seven fathoms of water. The 

 spawn is said by fishermen to require about fifteen to eighteen days to arrive at maturity. The 

 young fish leave the egg after that period. They are found near the coast until about the end of 

 December, according to the season, and the contents of the stomachs of murrs and puffins, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Jabez Tilly, are often full of young Capelin at that season. 



"At the Fishot Islands, in 1876, the Capelin were taken in deep water about the 20th of June, 

 before they 'came in.' The appearance of schools of Capelin coming in to spawn in May, June, 

 or July, according to the latitude of the place, has always excited astonishment at their numbers, 

 and often, in the present day, in Conception Bay and some other noted spawning grounds, remark- 

 able scenes may be witnessed; an idea may thus be formed of the extraordinary number of fry. 

 serving as food, which swarm even now in the Newfoundland seas. Nor is it less easy to conceive 

 how greatly these innumerable hosts have contributed to the drawing inshore of the deep-sea fish ; 

 first the adult fish forming the attraction, next the spawn, then the young fry, and thus continuing 

 to the approach of winter. So great has been the importance attached to the preservation of the 

 Capelin that legal enactments have passed the legislature of Newfoundland prohibiting the use of 

 this fish as manure, and the public documents abound with remonstrances against this palpable 

 abuse of one of the most important means for preserving the Newfoundland fisheries." 1 



MIGRATIONS. In the opinion of Professor Hind the Capelin winter with the cod in the 

 deeper portions of the bays of Newfoundland and Labrador, though in different zones of water. 

 Cod taken through the ice in January, 1852, in Saint Mary's Bay, had undigested Capelin in their 

 stomachs. Professor Hind remarks that an impression prevails among the fishermen that the 

 Capelin are moving north, and that the cod are following them, but this opinion is not shared by 

 the fishermen who have occupied the coast of Labrador for a century. They have known the 

 Capelin as far north as Nain for many years. On the Admiralty chart of Fort Manvers, latitude 

 57, longitude 62 7', thirty miles north of Nain, and published in 1871, Capelin Bay is the name 

 given to an anchorage, from which it is manifest that Capelin were seen there half a century 

 before the fishermen passed Aullik Bay, or even Cape Harrison, nearly two hundred miles to 

 the south. The Capelin, however, is not known to the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, or 

 to the missionaries beyond Cape Mumford. 2 



IMPORTANCE. The Capelin are consumed in great quantities by halibut, and also by whales. 

 In Finmark the cod fishery is divided into two seasons, the fishery which takes place early in the 

 spawning season, and the Lodde or Capeliu fishery, which occurs later, and which, when the 

 Capelin is abundant, is of great importance. 3 



^ 



The Labrador cod fishery, at one time of considerable importance to Provincetown, Marble- 

 head, Newburyport, and other fishing towns of Massachusetts, like the Lodde fishery of Finmark, 

 depended entirely upon the presence of Capelin. 



The Caj>elin is extensively used for bait in the Grand Bank fishery, especially by the French, 

 by whom it isfl^ated that sixty thousand hogsheads are annually taken about Newfoundland for 

 this purpose. In Greenland the Capelin forms so important an article of food that it has been 

 termed the "daily bread" of the natives. In Newfoundland they are dried in large quantities 

 and exported to London, where they are sold principally in the oyster shops. 4 



HlND: Fishery Clauses of the Treaty of Washington, 1877, p. 134. 

 HlND: Ibid., part ii, p. 70. 



3 Report United States Commission Fish and Fisheries, part v, 1879, p. 709. 

 4 LANMAN: Ibid. 



