THE COMMON HKItRIXG. %?.) 



upon the bare rock, and pile heavy stones upon the roots as ballast} 

 stretching their nets between them. Entirely submerged at flood, at ebb 

 they are left high and dry, and often loaded down with fish caught, by the 

 gills in the meshes of the net. These nets are usually set for a large, 

 lean spring herring, running for the flats in early spring to spawn. This 

 method of fishing obtains throughout the whole trap district of the pro- 

 vince bordering upon the Bay of Fundy. With the exception of Briar 

 and Long Islands, about whose coves nestle a hardy race of fishermen, 

 whose red-tan sails are seen from Mount Desert to Cape Sable, and in 

 all weathers, the population of these districts are farmers, rather than 

 fishermen, tilling the southern slopes of the North Mountain, and employ- 

 ing their spare time in procuring their winter supply, or a few boxes of 

 smoked herring for barter. Where unopposed by the stern barrier of 

 trap-rock, the great Bay pours its tide-waters up St. Mary's, or through 

 the Digby Gut, into the Annapolis Basin, or sweeps up the Avon and 

 Horton estuaries, or stays its flood on the Cumberland marshes, Minas 

 Basin, or the Shubenacadie ; there, a rural population, dwelling on the 

 borders of those streams and basins, hail with delight the periodically re- 

 turning wealth teeming in its muddy waters. Smooth seas, sandy bars, 

 and mud flats, dry at ebb, replace trap dyke and boisterous waves. The 

 fisheries are curiously modified by these physical changes. Flats and punts 

 take the place of keel-boats and whalers. Young fir-trees are driven into 

 the soft sand dry at ebb. Standing eight feet high, their green branches 

 interlacing, they are formed into circles or L's. The retreating tide, 

 which, in its flow, swept some 30 feet above them, leaves a teeming mass 

 of helpless fish stranded in the shallow pools within their circle. This 

 brush weir-fishing, as it is termed, less rude than^ the rugged stone- 

 loaded stakes of the trap coast, is yet inartistic enough to provoke 

 criticism in its waste of life, fish too small for use being included in the 

 catch ; yet we must recollect that it requires capital and population to be 

 humane, and that these fir-trees, renewed yearly, are the the cheapest and 

 only material at hand for a population, with no surplus time or capitaL 

 In these weirs are taken the Digby or smoked herring, known so well in 

 all markets. 



Mr. Benjamin Hardy, speaking of the Digby Herring, says i — 

 The first herrings that make their appearance in the Basin, come the 

 last of March and first of April ; about the first of May they begin to 

 spawn, and by the 20th of May they have mostly left the harbour. 

 About the time they leave, a small sized run of herrings come in ; they 

 stop but a short time, scarcely two weeks, and then leave. From the 

 middle of June to the first of July the regular school come in — they stop 

 generally about six weeks, sometimes longer, and then leave. There are 

 a very few spawn fish amongst the last-named ; of the second there are 

 none ; the first are nearly all spawn, or what is called melt fish, — which 

 means male and female. The spawn, or young herring, grow rapidly ; 

 I think the first year about four inches, as near as I can ascertain. I 



