36 AMBROSE ON ST. MARGARETS BAY FISHING GROUNDS. 



ordered all hands to turn in. All, nothing loth, -vrere soon fast 

 locked in the embraces of Morpheus, whilst the lantern, having 

 burst, set fire to the fore-rigging, burnt up the fore-sail and that 

 part of the hempen cable which lay coiled on deck, so that the 

 schooner slipped her moorings, and drifted off, blazing, until a 

 neighbouring craft sent a boat and awakened Tom and his snoring 

 crew, just as the cinders were beginning to drop down among them 

 from the burning deck over head. Here our open boats lie for 

 three or four days at a time, riding like ducks on a sea which often 

 obliges schooners to heave up and run in, owing to the superior 

 buoyancy of clinker over carvel built vessels. The sea is hea^vdest 

 in these ofi-shore soundings, when wind and currents contend 

 against each other, for at times during summer the current sets so 

 strong westwardly, that the fishing leads will not take bottom, but 

 trail off at an acute angle. At other times there is little or no cui"- 

 rent. In spring this current sets southwardly, during summer 

 'westwardly, and in autumn in a south-easterly direction. Coasting 

 vessels bound west often take advantage of this ocean current in the 

 summer season, during calm weather or high head winds, by stand- 

 insc well off shore. 



Here is the home of the large cod, ling and halibut, and here 

 are abundance of bank-clams, scallops, and other shell-fish, which 

 their admirers root out of the clayey valleys, on the sides of this 

 submarine hill. Here is no end of star-fish of all sorts, as well as 

 herrings, John Dorees, small cod, cat-fish and the other deep sea 

 food of the more valuable fish. Here the cod are of a different 

 kind from their bretliren in-shore, being what are called " bull- 

 eyed" fish, i.e., having their eyes very prominent, and covered 

 with a thicker skin than ordinary. Both of these peculiarities are 

 no doubt required for the great depths for which an all-wise and 

 kind Providence has fitted them. Here a crew of three men will, 

 in the course of two or three days fishing, catch from twenty to 

 thirty quintals of cod, with perhaps a quintal or more of ling, and 

 occasionally two or three, or even half-a-dozen fine fat halibut. 

 Cod, generally, but cusk invariably, evert the stomach in being 

 rapidly hauled up from deep water. After the stomach has thus 

 been turned inside out, so as to project beyond the mouth, the fish, 

 even if it brenk from the hook, will float to the surface, and 



