202 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
has had on the herring fishery of Maine and on the development in 
certain places of an important bait fishery to supply the needs of 
American vessels: 
Since 1885 the herring fishery of Maine has undergone a noticeable increase, which 
has been chiefly due to the abrogation of the Washington treaty. The manufactur- 
ing enterprises connected with the canning of lobsters, the canning and smoking of 
herring, ete., have steadily increased, and new life and new capital have been put 
into the industry to meet the demand for larger supplies of raw materials, among 
which herring rank first in quantity and importance. The increase in the number 
of weirs and other applhances of capture has. been more marked each year, and the 
growth and extension westward of the fishery and the dependent shore industries 
has beenone of the most noteworthy features of the fisheries of this State during th 
past decade. 
An increase in the herring weir fisheries has in most localities been attended with 
a corresponding increase in the smoked-herring business, but in the region of Mount 
Desert Island a most interesting and important exception ‘to this rule is to be 
observed, due to its favorable location as a baiting rendezvous for the bank cod fish- 
ermen of both Maine and Massachusetts. In this vicinity the increase in the number 
of herring weirs has had no appreciable effect on the smoking of herring, the smoke- 
houses being more neglected than ever before. This condition is due to the cireum- 
stance that herring can be sold fresh for bait at better prices than would result from 
smoking them. The demand for bait in this section is now so constant and so great 
that the weir fishermen have not been able to meet it, and an extensive herring 
fishery with gill nets has been inaugurated within the past three years to supplement 
the weir fishery. At the Cranberry Isles and also in the vicinity of Southwest 
Harbor and Bar Harbor large numbers of bank and shore vessels are baited each year, 
and the practice of taking bait in this vicinity is annually becoming more popular 
and of increasing importance to the deep-sea fisheries. Prior to the building of 
weirs there was little or no baiting done here, and vessels were obliged to resort to 
more distant places and often had to go to the provinces at great loss of time. 
The marked effect which the expiration of the reciprocity treaty with Canada has 
had on the development of the fisheries and fishery industries of the entire eastern 
coast of Maine has been nowhere more noticeable than in the increased facilities 
afforded American yessels to procure an abundant supply of bait in home ports 
through the building of brush weirs. 
Eastward movement of menhaden.—One of the most prominent and 
interesting features of the New England fisheries during the decade 
terminating in 1888 was the practically complete absence of menhaden 
from the Gulf of Maine, where they had previously resorted in enor- 
mous bodies and supported an industry of great importance. This fail- 
ure of the menhaden to appear within such a large area was one of the 
most remarkable variations in the movements of our Atlantic coast 
fishes that has been recorded, and was much more noteworthy, although 
less important, than the present scarcity of mackerel. In 1888 large 
schools of menhaden were found east of Cape Cod, considerable num- 
bers being taken as far east as Frenchman Bay, Maine. The next 
season there was a return of the fish to the Maine coast in schools fully 
as large and numerous as had ever before been observed. The fishery, ° 
which was begun on a limited scale in 1888, was greatly augmented, 
and many vessels from Rhode Island and other States found it more 
profitable to fish in Maine waters during a part of the season, which 
. 
