868 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



point out that in a region where the tidal currents are as strong as they are in the 

 Gulf of Maine, little information as to the dominant drift is to be had from a bottle 

 until it has been adrift thi-ough several tidal periods. Consequently, when a bottle 

 set adrift within 3 or 4 miles of shore at the beginning of the flood tide is recovered 

 on the beach it does not mean that a dominant inshore set brought it in, but simply 

 that it drifted and stranded with the tide. 



These remarks are elementary, but are introduced here because, in conversation, 

 I have found a very general tendency to ascribe a direct drift to any drift bottle. 



BOTTLES SET OUT IN THE BAY OF FUNDY 



The first systematic attempt to plot the dominant or nontidal circulation of any 

 part of the gulf by the use of drift bottles was undertaken by the Atlantic (St. 

 Andrews) biological station of the Biological Board of Canada in the summer of 

 1919, when 396 bottles were set adrift on lines crossing the Bay of Fundy, with 

 results so positive that they are extremely welcome for the light they throw on the 

 returns from the several series subsequently released in the open gulf by the Bureau 

 of Fisheries. The complete data of localities of release and recovery are given by 

 Mavor (1922), who has also discussed the probable tracks in such detail that a brief 

 summary will suffice here. 



The recoveries^' niay be divided into two groups — first, from within the Bay of 

 Fundy, and second, from the Gulf of Maine."^ 



Bottles picked up within the Bay of Fundy were all set out in August and 

 September, 1919, along lines at right angles to the general axis of the bay. Five 

 bottles, set out at distances of 1 to 10 miles from shore on a line running north- 

 west from Brier Island, at the mouth of the bay, and picked up along its Nova 

 Scotian shore after drifts of 25 to 65 miles, show a definite set inward along the 

 southern side of the bay consistent with the current measurements that have been 

 taken there (Mavor, 1922, p. 116, fig. 13). One of these traveled at a rate of 

 more than 4 nautical miles per day. It seems, however, that this inward drift involved 

 only a narrow belt, probably not more than 6 or 7 miles wide at the time, because 

 only one bottle from the next line to the west (one set adrift about 7 miles from the 

 shore of Digby Neck) took this route, while two others released closer in to the 

 land drifted across the bay to the New Brunswick shore and to Grand Manan. 



Most of the recoveries from all the other lines were from points on the New 

 Brunswick shore ; a few were from the neighborhood of Grand Manan and a few (to 

 be considered later) were in the Gulf of Maine outside the bay. Mavor's (1922) 

 analysis brings out the interesting fact that the bottles that were picked up farthest 

 east on the New Brunswick shore *^ were all set out in the southern side of the bay 

 within 12 miles of the Nova Scotian shore. 



The bottles set out in the southern side of the bay (several lines) thus exhibit 

 one or the other of two rather definite tendencies. Those set adrift near the Nova 



" Only those reported within 4 months after the bottles were set out are considered here. 



" Mavor (1922, p. 116) states that "all the drift bottles which have been recorded from outside the Bay of Fundy wore picked 

 up in the Quif of Maine." Two also have been reported from Europe (Mavor, 1921; Moor [Mavor], 1921). 

 " Between Musquash Harbor (long. 06°15'W.) and St. John. 



