BIND OK THE MOVEMENTS OP MACKBEEL. 301 



lar circles or elongated ellipses, the range of each school or group of schools being opposite and 

 often adjacent to that part of the coast where they spawn. 



"As the fall approaches, owing to the diminution in the supply of their floating food out at 

 sea, they come more inland. 



"All the free-swimming larval forms of most species of shrimps, crabs, lobsters, sea-urchins, 

 star-fish, sea- worms, &c., have disappeared in the open sea, after passing through their final trans- 

 formation. But near the shore there are great numbers of other forms of life, which are developed 

 later in the year. Coming inshore to feed on these on the Atlantic coast, the Mackerel are found 

 by American fishermen later and later on their return voyage to the southwest, which gives rise to 

 the impression that they are following the schools, when they are only meeting with fresh schools 

 approaching the shore from their feeding grounds. Similar movements occur on the Atlantic coast 

 of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. As winter approaches, beginning at Cape Breton in November, 

 the different schools retire to their winter homes off the coast in deep water later and later from 

 north to south. 



"In the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where land is, as it were, on all sides, the local schools come 

 from their winter haunts to the banks and beaches of the Magdalens, of Prince Edward Island, in 

 the Bay Chaleur, etc., to spawn about the first week in June. They retire after spawning to deep 

 water, and meet the incoming sand-launce. They follow the sand-launce inshore or on to banks, 

 and for some weeks feed on these fish. When the sand-launce again retires to deep water, the 

 season of the small crustaceans has arrived, and these by tidal action, already described, and 

 winds, are concentrated near the coast lines of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, the north 

 and south shore of the estuary and gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the shores of Cape Breton. On 

 all these coasts the effect of the single and confluent tides, dragging along the coast line and 

 retarded by it, is to produce eddies, where the free-swimming food concentrates. The course of 

 direction of the different schools during the summer is thus dependent upon winds and tides, and 

 their movements would, if correctly plotted, resemble long narrow ellipses adjacent to the coast, 

 which are doubtless many times repeated. 



"At the approach of winter the different schools seek their winter quarters opposite and near 

 to the places where they spawned in the preceding spring, as is the case of the schools on the 

 Atlantic coasts. In these particulars their movements resemble those of different species of fish 

 which feed and move in great schools in directions outlined by circles or ellipses throughout the 

 period during which they are at the surface.' 



'It is a fact well known to all experienced mackerel iishermen that during the month of May and the early part 

 of June large bodies of Mackerel pass along the shores of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton &om west to east, and while 

 many schools move through the waters of Chedahucto Bay and the Straits of Canso to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, 

 another body passes in around the east end of Cape Breton Island, their destination being the same as those fish 

 taking the shorter route. No better evidence of this migratory habit can be deduced than the fact that at this season 

 of the year the fishermen along the Nova Scotian coast and about the Strait of Canso are busily employed in catching 

 Mackerel both in gill-nets and in drag-seines. On some occasions when the season has been exceptionally favorable 

 the amount of Mackerel so taken has often been very great. This movement of the Mackerel is so regular and so 

 well-defined that the fishermen rarely fail to tell within a few days, or perhaps even a few hours, of the time when 

 they will appear on certain portions of the coast. The fall migrations are quite as regular. As the season advances 

 and the temperature of the water decreases, the Mackerel, instead of simply changing their position into deeper water 

 near their summer habitat, as has been stated by Professor Hind, move in vast bodies towards the southern part of 

 the Grulf of Saint Lawrence, frequently striking in a succession of waves, as it were, on the northern shores of Cape 

 Breton Island, where, deflected from their southern course, they divide into two streams or branches, one passing 

 through the Strait of Canso, and the other out round the north cape of the island, and by its eastern and southern 

 sides, and so on up along the south coast of Nova Scotia. The Mackerel which are found about the Magdalene 

 Islands during the summer and early autumn apparently move in a nearly direct line towards the northeast end of 

 Cape Breton Island, when they begin their fall migration. I have often had occasion to notice, in a practical way, 

 these movements, the knowledge of which is of vital importance to the fishermen and of considerable interest to the 



