THE BANK TRAWL-LINE COD FISHERY. 183 
the entire coast, forms almost the sole occupation of nearly all the male inhabitants. When her 
supply of bait is exhausted, the vessel, anchored on the Grand Bank 100 or 200 miles from the 
land, runs for the nearest harbor for a replenishing. Should bait be wanting there at that time 
the vessel would probably run to some other harbor, selecting one from which rumors of plenty 
were gone out. In this way the bankers visit the island in large numbers, and bring into it a by 
no means small amount of business. A vessel may take several baitings. If she has good fortune 
two baitings will be enough to fill her, but she may have to take three, or even four or five. The 
stay on the Bank during which a vessel is using up her bait is known as a baiting. Thus the 
question is very often heard, “Where did you use up your second baiting? How much did you get 
on your second baiting?” The word is also very often used for a supply of bait, a sense in which 
I have employed it just above. 
FROZEN HERRING.—-The kind of bait does not remain the same throughout the year. As the 
year opens, one kind is employed; this is later followed by bait of another sort, and finally, at the 
close of the season, still others are used. Those vessels which seek the Banks very early in the 
year, or as late as the latter part of March or first of April, take for their first baiting the herring 
(Clupea harengus, Lin.). These they can obtain in Fortune Bay during the early part of the year 
more readily than at any other portion of Newfoundland. The herring are taken in seines. The 
natives (“liviers,” as they are called) watch for a school to make its appearance in their harbor. 
When seen they put out in their punts and surround the school with a net, and then take 
them out with dip-nets. The herring are then sold to the bankers at a price varying from 
twenty-five to sixty cents per hundred. While the weather is very cold the bait may be preserved 
fresh along while. This is done by freezing the herring and then keeping them in a vessel’s hold, 
from exposure to the air, so that they cannot thaw. In this way they are kept for three or four 
weeks, until the weather has grown so warm that this method of preservation is no longer practi- 
cable. From the fact that the herring are thus preserved frozen, this baiting is always known among 
fishermen as a “‘baitin’ o’ frozen herrin’.” I have spoken as though it was common for such a baiting 
to be used on the Grand Bank. Such, however, is by no means the case. As a rule, very few 
vessels visit the Bank during the early part of the year, but. make their first inroad upon the codfish 
on the Western Bank or on Banquereau. In that case they quite as frequently obtain their bait 
in some Nova Scotia harbor in the Bay of Fundy as in Fortune Bay, Newfoundland. 
ICED HERRING.—AS the season advances, however, a large fleet of cod-fishermen from all the 
various fishing ports of our coast run for the Grand Bank. These are very likely to visit For- 
tune Bay or some harbor along the southern coast of Newfoundland for their baiting. This is 
composed again of herring, but preserved differently, owing to the increased temperature on the 
Bank during April and the succeeding months. The herring are now kept in ice in the bait-pens. 
Ice bought at some harbor on the way from home, or obtained in the harbor where the bait is 
bought, is cracked up quite small in the huge splitting tubs. A layer of the fine ice is then spread 
over the floor of the bait-pen. Over this layer is spread a layer of fish ; then a layer of ice follows, 
and a second layer of fish. In this way the fish and the ice are sandwiched in until the pen is 
filled. This, which is termed “a baiting of herring,” will in this way be preserved from fifteen to 
eighteen days. For the baiting, the skipper pays about $25 or $30. and receives 40 barrels of 
the herring. ‘ 
CAPELIN:—By the time two baitings are consumed, or by about the middle of June, the 
next kind of bait begins to appear on the coast of Newfoundland. This is the capelin, a,small boreal 
fish (Mallotus villosug Cuv.), and quite closely resembling our well-known smelt (Osmerus mordax 
. 
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