904 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
the vicinity of Cape Sable, and one or two found along the coast of Maine well to 
the eastward, in each instance. In the case of the drifts that cross the gulf, this track, 
I believe, is now definitely proven to approach the Bay of Fundy from the south or 
southwest, by the evidence just detailed. 
The relationship which distance traveled bears to time interval between release 
and recovery also argues for a circuitous route for the bottles that went to Nova 
Scotia from the Mount Desert line, because the average distance for all of them, in 
a direct line, would be only about 85 miles, though the times range from 62 to 88 
days for 8 of 10 77 (averaging 70 days). Evidence of this sort must, of course, be 
used with discrimination, because there is no knowing how long a bottle lies on the 
beach before it is noticed. When the results prove reasonably consistent, however, 
some trust can be put in them. In the present connection we have as a standard 
for comparison the Nova Scotian drifts from the lines set out off Cape Elizabeth. 
The distance (in a direct line) is only about one-half as great from Mount Desert 
to Nova Scotia as from Cape Elizabeth. The two lines of 1923 were set out only 
one day apart, and there is no reason to suppose that bottles from one line would be 
consistently overlooked while bottles from the other would be soon found. Conse- 
quently, it is reasonable to assume that some of the Mount Desert bottles would have 
been found a month or more before the first were reported from the Cape Elizabeth 
line, unless they had journeyed by a very circuitous route. Actually, however, the 
first four recoveries for the former were on October 7 to 9; the first three of the latter 
on the 9th and 10th. Allowing the one day’s difference in the dates when the two 
series were put out, we have the rather surprising fact that the time intervals for 
these two groups, launched almost 100 miles apart, were the same almost to a day, 
though the strandings were scattered along more than 20 miles of coast line between 
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. 
The time intervals for the Nova Scotian drifts as a whole, from these two series, 
also correspond much more closely than the difference in direct distance would have 
suggested as probable, averaging about 75 days for the Cape Elizabeth series (extremes 
of 56 to 111 days; p. 875) and about 70 days for the Mount Desert group (62 to 151 ; 
p. 874). 
The percentage of recoveries is not only of the same general order of magnitude 
for the Mount Desert line as for the Cape Elizabeth line of 1923 (respectively, 28 
and 19 per cent), but the Nova Scotian and Fundian returns formed almost the same 
proportion of the total for the former (36 per cent of the total returns) as for the 
latter (42 per cent). 
The most reasonable explanation for this correspondence between the two series, 
and the only explanation that fits all the facts just outlined, is that the journey to 
Nova Scotia covered about as long a distance for the Mount Desert bottles as for 
the Cape Elizabeth bottles, and that the former drifted southwestward at first, to join 
the general route of the latter group from west to east across the gulf. 
Bottle No. 1584, set adrift about 25 miles out from Mount Desert Island and 
picked up at Haycocks Harbor, on the north shore of the Grand Manan Channel, 
93 days later, probably followed the same general track as the bottles that went to 
77 Three others (Nos. 1530, 1551, and 1557), which were not picked up until 133 and 151 days had passed, may have lain 
unnoticed on the beach or drifted in and out along the shore with the tides. 
