[27] OPERATIONS OF SCHOONER GRAMPUS. 517 



from Wbite Bay, reported no mackerel having been seen in the latter 

 locality or the adjacent coast waters. 



The captain of the schooner Phoenix, which had jnst left White Bay, 

 also reported that no mackerel had been seen in White Bay or vicinity 

 during the summer. We hove-to oft' Bay Verte and tried for mackerel 

 with toll-bait for about an hour, but without result. 



We did not learn of the recent occurrence of mackerel at Canada Bay. 

 The inhabitants seemed to have no definite recollection of mackerel 

 having been there. 



On August 4, when near Cape Norman, in the Strait of Belle Isle, 

 we were boarded by two of the crew of the schooner Edward Rich, of 

 Catalina, Newfoundland, and they said that their vessel had been in 

 that vicinity since June 25 and had taken no mackerel, nor had they 

 heard of any being taken, neither had they seen anything that would 

 indicate the presence of mackerel in the Strait. One of them said that 

 he had fished in the Strait for several successive summers, but had 

 never known of mackerel being abundant there. Two or three years 

 previous, he remembered that a few mackerel had been taken about 

 Cape Norman in herring gill-nets, but they were not plentiful. 



Capt. J. W. Pitts, of the schooner Terror, of Shelbourne, N. S., whom 

 I met at Black Bay on August 5, said that he had cruised along the 

 Labrador coast from the Mingan Islands to Fox Bay, beginning his 

 cruise at the former place on May 18. He had not learned of the 

 presence of mackerel this year in any of the localities he visited, and 

 he had the impression that mackerel had not been abundant anywhere' 

 along that coast in many years. 



In previous years he had caught mackerel with hook and line about 

 the middle of August, in the vicinity of Esquimaux Point, at Mingan. 

 In 1886 a few mackerel were caught atNatasquan, but he had heard of 

 none being taken in the Strait of Belle Isle. In 1885 large but poor 

 mackerel were fairly abundant in the strait, and Captain Pitts pur- 

 chased a quantity at Ked Bay of the local fishermen who caught the 

 fish in 2|inch-mesh herring gill-nets. Only a comparatively small 

 amount of mackerel were taken by the fishermen at Red Bay, and few 

 or none at other points in the strait. 



The fishermen of Black Bay, Strait of Belle Isle, agreed in saying 

 that mackerel were abundant in the summer of 1885, from about the 

 middle to the last of August. One skipper of a seining gang told me 

 that he could have hauled a vessel load in one drag-seine at the head 

 "of the bay. But there was no market for them, and the few barrels 

 wbich were taken from time to time could not be sold, or the price re- 

 ceived was too low to pay for the work of curing the fish, not to speak 

 of "he labor of catching them. 



H^-re, as on the " French shore" of Newfoundland, there was a remark- 

 able consensus of statement to the effect that the mackerel taken are gen- 

 eric of large size, but always poor in flesh and of little value as food. 



