448 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
La Have, and Western banks, usually take supplies of frozen-herring 
bait from the home ports. 
Table IV shows the New England fleet engaged in the off-shore cod 
and halibut fisheries in the year 1888, dividing them according to their 
hailing ports and fishing grounds. The total number of vessels is 
shown to have been 370, of which 305 were owned in the State of Mas- 
sachusetts, 60 in Maine, and 5 in Connecticut. Cue hundred and two 
of the vessels fished exclusively on the Grand Bank, and 63 others 
visited that ground at some period in the year. 
Table V gives the number of American fishing vessels entering Brit- 
ish North American ports, including those of Newfoundland, together 
with the number of times said ports were visited by the vessels in the 
several fisheries, and the amount of money expended by them for bait, 
ice, provisions, repairs, etc., during 1885, the last year of the continu- 
ance of the so called Washington treaty. In addition to the expendi- 
tures incurred on the part of the vessels, the crews disbursed greater or 
less amounts, aggregating $16,800, an estimate based on the assumption 
that each man would spend only $5 during the season. The average 
number of times that each vessel entered foreign ports in 1885 was five. 
Table VI shows that in 1886 5,137 barrels of clam-bait, valued at 
$28,230, and in 1887 4,430 barrels, valued at $24,440, were shipped 
from Maine to be used by the provincials. Sedgwick, Deer Isle, and 
the vicinity of Portland are the centers of this trade. A large portion 
of the clam-bait received at Portland is transhipped by way of Boston, 
the custom-house records of which city show that in 1886 1,905 barrels, 
and in 1887 1,S13 barrels, valued at $9,789 and $9,102, respectively, 
were exported to the provinces. 
The mackerel fishery is treated of in four tables (YII to X). 
Table YII shows, by customs districts, the quantity of mackerel caught 
by the New England fleet in 1886, with the fishing grounds on which 
the fish were taken. Three hundred and thirty-eight vessels used purse- 
seines ; these schooners are generally of large size, ranging from 40 to 
140 tons, and carrying from 10 to 20 men. The 149 vessels using hand- 
lines and nets vary in size from 5 to 70 tons, but are generally small 
craft, with Irom 2 to 13 men. They fished along the coast of the 
United States with more or less regularity during the summer months. 
Three fished in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with hand-lines; these were 
the schooners M. L. Wetherell and William V. Hutchins , of Gloucester, 
and G. M. Hopkins , of Provincetown. 
The total catch of mackerel in 1886 was 130,170 barrels, of which 
38,583 barrels were sold fresh and 91,587 barrels were brine-salted. 
The catch of the Southern fishery amounted to 19,812 barrels, of which 
all but 3,676 barrels were sold fresh, chiefly in New York. The New 
England shore yielded 39,303 barrels, of which 21,687 barrels were dis- 
posed of in a fresh state. The catch on the Nova Scotia shore and in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence included more than half of the total product 
