nLCHAUTJ. 
85 
high hills and grounds without being guilty of trespass: 
®-nd it also permits other persons to attend the seans or nets 
for the purpose of landing or carrying away the fish thus 
oaught. Persons, however, who came thither out of mere 
cuiiosity were svrbject to a penalty for their intrusion. 
There still remain many local appearances which shew that 
o fish thus caught were not always carried away, but were 
®!ilted and prepared for exportation at the places where they 
been brought to land; but there is also evidence to 
® GW that the quantity thus caught could not in any individual 
instance have been large, while the fishermen must have been 
on tantalized at observing the large abundance of schools 
ich obstinately maintained a position at a somewhat greater 
s ance than in their method of proceeding they were able 
to reach. 
It is within the extent of our information, derived from 
^■gGd fishermen, and reaching back to more than a hundred 
yoars, that some considerable changes have taken place in the 
es at which the larger bodies of these fish have come to 
“Ur coast, and which appear more unaccountable than the 
merely capricious movements pursued in ordinary seasons, but 
. must have considerably influenced the methods pursued 
fishery, and especially on its success. Thus for upwards 
thirty years at the middle of the last century, the most 
®’iccessful portion of the fishery was carried on after the 
autumnal equinox, and consequently by drift nets, since the 
®Gans could scarcely be then exposed to the risk inevitable 
^loni the stormy weather, and the long and dark nights. But 
and^^b* of the same century a change took place, 
® principal success was from the beginning of August 
the ^ September, when a large increase took place in 
number of seans, and a profitable fishery was experienced 
^y u of them. It is now again found that after a nearly 
coa t time, the winter fishery along the southward 
^ 3.S IS alone or chiefly successful, and a diminution in the 
th‘ scans is the necessary result. There are not at 
time more than a fourth part so many as were in use 
of certain that it was not the withdrawal 
c bounty alone that caused the lessening of the number. 
•It when in the summer the fishery is about to begin, it 
