Z6b THE ICHTHYOLOGY OF XOVA SCOTIA ■ 



form greater migrations. These migrations must cause a total change ill 

 the food, the temperature, respiration, and external pressure during 

 winter and summer. 



Following Dekay and Storer, I have considered it a distinct species 

 from the Harenga, or English, though Richardson calls his taken at 

 Bathurst inlet, Harenga ; and Yarr ell's description of the Harenga seems 

 to vary hut little ironi ours. 



We have seen that our herring passes his existence alternately in a 

 state of rest in deep soundings, (this rest not so deep though, as from 

 recent facts we infer the mackerel does, who, it would appear, becomes 

 torpid and blind during winter, like certain Batrachians whom he re- 

 sembles in his colour), aud of a highly, aerated and lively existence 

 upon the surface. During this state he presents himself as food for man 

 who employs his arts in securing the rich bounty, spread as it were at 

 his door. This brings us insensibly to the history of our Herring 

 Fishery. 



As early as March, herrings are taken in nets on our coast, but the 

 fish are so straggling and the seas so boisterous, that, except for bait, 

 fishing does not commence till May. In this month a run of large fat 

 herring are taken in nets upon the Banks, which lie 10 or 15 miles sea- 

 ward, and carry about 75 fathoms water. A net 30 fathoms long and 

 3 deep is passed from the stern of a boat at anchor. The free end drifts 

 with the tide, held to the surface by cork floats, sometimes the tides 

 carry the net down 15 fathoms in a slanting direction, — thus drifting 

 from night to morning, — the net is overhauled, and from 20 to 100 

 dozen is the ordinary catch. It is very evident from the distance from 

 shore, the need of calm weather for the boats and nets, as well as for 

 the fish, who are very susceptible to rough seas, this fishing must be pre- 

 carious. The boats are stout, weatherly keel boats, with a half deck, 

 from 5 to 15 tons, carrying a gib, fore and mainsail, and usually called 

 second class fishermen, when entered at a regatta. 



The " in shore run,'" a fish of smaller size, are taken in nets set to a 

 buoy, instead of a boat, the free end drifting to the tide. These nets are 

 often moored from one buoy to another to preserve a permanent position 

 across a creek or small bay. In these various ways herring are taken by 

 the shore population of the whole Atlantic and Gulf coast of Nova 

 Scotia, from the Bay of Fundy to Cumberland. The immense tides of 

 the Bay of Fundy, leaving long flats and sand bars at low tide, and the 

 steep trap formation of its southern coastline have singularly altered the 

 character of the fishery. Here the drift-net fishing obtains, boats and 

 nets drifting for miles upon the flow and returning upon the ebb, the nets 

 twisted and coiled into apparently impossible masses. The shores of the 

 trap formation being flat tables of trap reaching plane after plane into 

 the sea, with no crevice to hold a stake or anchor a buoy, the fishermen 

 procure stout spruce fir trees, and lopping off the branches, leave the 

 long lateral roots attached to them. These they place upright in rows 



