BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 167 
worthless. They are more or less injured by drifting ice in winter, and 
considerable expense is incurred in putting them in repair for the fish- 
ing season in the spring, the annual expense of repairs being 15 to 25 
per cent, of the original cost of construction. 
The catch of the average weir can not be predicted with any cer- 
tainty. It is estimated by Mr. Schroeder, a gentleman well informed 
on this subject, that not more than one-third or one-fourth of the weirs 
built during any season will catch fish enough to pay for tending them. 
Those not successful are seldom kept up more than one or or two sea- 
sons, after which they are abandoned. He further states that the few 
weirs that are successful catch fish only three or four years, after which 
the quantity taken gradually decreases until it is found desirable to aban- 
don them. After remaining out of repair for a number of seasons they are 
rebuilt and are often as successful as during the first years of their fishing. 
Net half a dozen weirs out of the entire number in the vicinity have fished 
regularly since the beginning of the sardine industry, and the result is 
that the fishermen are constantly on the lookout for better privileges, 
and are moving them about Irom season to season in the hope of find- 
ing better fishing. It is claimed that the number of weirs about Deer 
Island is not incre asing, but that while new weirs are being built yearly 
others are allowed to run down, so that the total number remains con- 
stantly about the same. This would not be true of the north shore be- 
tween St. Andrew’s Bay and Lepreau, as the weir fisheries there are in- 
creasing rapidly. 
Profits of weir fishino.— While the catch of some weirs is so 
small as to be unremunerative, that of others is often very large, and 
the price paid for herring is such that the majority of the weir fisher- 
men are rapidly improving their financial condition, as shown by 
both the interior and exterior of their dwellings, and by the character of 
their* boats. The largest catch of which we learn was from a weir in 
Letite Passage, which stocked nearly $20,000. Another weir, on Adam’s 
Island, recently stocked over $10,000 in one season, while a weir at 
Deer Island caught $800 worth of herring at a single tide. One weir 
at Letite Passage, which is now considered the best in the region, is 
owned by Canadian fishermen, but controlled by Eastport parties, who, 
beginning with 1886, have agreed to pay an annual rental of $2,000 a 
year and $3 additional per hogshead for all fish that are taken in it ; 
and notwithstanding these seemingly exorbitant figures, they find 
it advantageous to make this arrangement, as the catch of this season 
has been unprecedentedly large, and owing to the high prices at which 
fish have been selling elsewhere, the difference between their contract 
price of $3 and the average market rates in the vicinity has been suffi- 
cient to very nearly pay the entire three years’ rental in advance, thus 
leaving a handsome profit on the fish that may be caught in the future. 
Movements of the Herrino.-— The fish enter the weirs at differ- 
ent times according to their location with reference -to the shore. With 
