this spring. They take herring for bait and for sale in their own and foreign markets. 16. On an average the Canadian mackerel are larger than the Ameri can. 17. The principal breeding and feeding grounds of mackerel are at Magdalen Islands, P. E. Island, Bay Chaleur, and Gaspé Bay. Mackere! feed on lance, herring, shrimps, and other marine animals floating in or about the surface of the water inshore. 18. I consider it a great advantage to American fishermen frequenting Canadian waters to be allowed to land, dry their nets, and cure their fish. 19. The privilege granted to the American fishermen by the Treaty of Washington, to be allowed to transship their cargoes, is of the greatest advantage to them, in this respect, that it enables them to keep on the fishing grounds, and to double and triple their fares. 20. The American fishermen could not carry on the fishery of cod and halibut if they were not allowed to catch bait inshore or to buy it from the inhabitants. If they buy it instead of catching it, it is because they save time and find it more profitable. 21. I consider it a great advantage to Americans to be allowed to resort to Canadian inshores for ice. Not later than last week an American schooner fishing halibut here, lost her fare by not having ice. us. 22. The privilege of fishing in American waters is of no advantage to I never knew of any vessel from here ever resorting there to fish. 23. Fishing by Americans in Canadian waters injures their fisheries. Let us suppose for an instant that Gaspé Bay was full of mackerel and 50 sail of vessels come in and fish one day, and you could not find a fish there next day; that is my experience. E. MARSHALL. Sworn to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief, at Anticosti, county of Saguenay, Province of Quebec, Dominion of Canada, this 23d day of July, 1877, before me. N. LAVOIE, Justice of the Peace, Province of Quebec. No. 37. DOMINION OF CANADA, Province of Nova Scotia : In the matter of the Fisheries Commission at Halifax under the Treaty of Washington. I, JAMES A. NICKERSON, of Margaret's Bay, in county of Halifax, Province of Nova Scotia, master mariner, make oath and say as follows: 1. I have been engaged nearly all my life, either directly or indirectly, in the fishing business. For about eight years I was engaged in the mackerel fisheries and commanded the vessel. Two of the years were immediately before the Reciprocity Treaty and the other six were during its continuance. 2. My vessel, the Argo, was about sixty tons burthen, and my average catch per season was eight hundred barrels. 3. I fished along the northern and eastern coast of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, and followed up to Bay of Gaspé and the Bay de Chaleur. 4. My best catches were taken off the north coast of Cape Breton, from Shittegan to Hanley Island, Port Hood, and I never caught any of the fish to speak of beyond three miles from the shore. I am certain and positively swear that fully nine-tenths, and I believe more than that proportion of my entire catch was taken within three miles of the shore; the nearer to the shore I could get the better it would be for catching fish. One reason of that is that the mackerel keep close inshore to get the fishes they feed on, and these little fishes keep in the eddies of the tide quite close to the shore. 5. If I had been prevented from catching fish within these three miles I am satisfied I could not have got any fish at all. 6. Along Prince Edward Island the fishermen sometimes get good catches more than three miles from the shores. This is caused by the large fleets of vessels who only fish when the wind is off shore, drawing the schools of mackerel out into the gulf by throwing bait while fishing and drifting off from the land. It is necessary, however, for the fishing vessels to go close inshore before they can raise the mackerel and to draw them off. If the fishing vessels were kept out of the three-miles belt or limit the same result would follow as off Cape Breton; no mackerel would be taken. 6. Later on in the season the fishing fleet, by constantly throwing bait and drawing the mackerel from the shore, manage to get the fish in deeper water, and then, sometimes, catches are made at long distances from the shore. 7. In Bay de Chaleur catches of mackerel are sometimes made or taken more than three miles from shore, but this is the result of their being drawn off shore by the fleet fishing, the same as off the other coasts I have spoken of. 8. The American fishing fleet frequented the gulf in great numbers during the years I fished, but their numbers varied greatly, sometimes numbering five hundred and sometimes one thousand. 9. These American fishermen got their catches in the same places we did. They took the fish close in to the shore; that is, by far the larger proportion of them; and the opinion of the American fishermen was universal that, if they were excluded from fishing within these three miles off the shore, they might as well at once abandon the fishery. 10. The fishing was principally carried on by hook and line, but since the Treaty of Washington Americans have used, to a considerable extent, purse-seines to catch the mackerel. 11. I am satisfied that the fishing grounds are seriously injured by the American fishing fleet throwing over the offal from the mackerel when cleaning them; and I am acquainted with localities where the fishing was temporarily destroyed from this cause. Boat fishermen never throw over the offal; they carry it on shore with them. 12. I was one of the officers of the Sweepstake, one of the Canadian marine police cruisers, one year-the year 1869-and of the S. G. Marshall during the years 1870 and 1871. The S. G. Marshall was another of these cruisers. Our duties were to enforce the law preventing American fishing vessels from fishing along the inshores. The two first years our station for cruising lay between Pictou and St. Paul's Island, and the last year from Shediac to Gaspé, including the Bay de Chaleur. My experience was that the Americans constantly endeavored to get into the prohibited ground to fish. The first few weeks we commenced cruising we were stationed at the Gut of Causo, and we boarded all the American vessels that passed through, and warned them not to fish within three miles of the shore on pain of being seized and forfeited. Notwithstanding that warning, they kept continually creeping in, and we eventually seized the A. H. Wauson, while fishing within three miles of the north shore of Cape Breton. At that time there were at least fifty American fishing vessels fishing at the same place, and within three miles of the shore, but we could only seize one. The others left for home almost immediately, saying it was useless to prosecute the fishing unless they could do so within three miles of the shore. 13. During the first two years we were cruising we were constantly finding them fishing within three miles of the shore. They could not raise the fish outside and were obliged to come in. We kept constantly warning them, but they as constantly and persistently kept fishing inside the limits and close to the shore. The last year (1871) when cruising between Shediac and Gaspé, we did not see many of them violate the law by coming within the limits, but when I ran over to Prince Edward Island I saw great numbers of them fishing within three miles of the shore, as many as thirty at one time. At that time they were allowed by the island government to fish there, as I understood, but I had no authority to interfere with them. 14. The experience gained by me during these years when I was engaged in these cruisers, and my own previous knowledge, gained from years of practical experience in the business, convinces me, beyond a doubt, and I have no hesitation in stating it under oath as my firm, deliberate, conviction, that if the American fishermen were prohibited or could be strictly prevented from fishing within three miles of the shore, they would entirely abandon the British-American waters altogether, so far as mackerel are concerned. 15. The inshore fisheries are of so much more greater value than the outshore or deep-sea fisheries, that the latter would be utterly useless by themselves and without participation in the inshore fishery. 16. The Americans do use the purse-seines for catching mackerel on our coasts, and their use has the effect of driving the fish into deep water and away from the ordinary fishing grounds. I am not aware that they have been used extensively; my opinion is that they have not been. 17. I am aware that the American fishermen buy large quantities of bait all along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. I cannot say whether they catch it to any extent themselves. Without this bait they could not carry on the cod-fishery at all. When I speak of not being able to say whether they catch bait, I wish to confine that to the berrings. I am aware that they fish for and catch squid in Canseau, Guysboro, and along the eastern coast of Cape Breton in considerable quantities. I have seen them catching these squid every time I have been along the coast in the squid season. These squid are among the very best bait for codfish, far better than herring. They are taken close into the shore, sometimes up against the rocks. They would prefer buying the squid to catching them if they could buy them, but they cannot, because the people do not catch them to any extent. Squid are taken with a jig; they are not taken in nets. 18. Since the Washington Treaty, the Americn cod-fishers have been able to get their supplies for the cod-fishery, besides their bait and ice, along our coasts, and the consequence is there has been a marked increase, I would say fifty per cent., of these American cod fishers. Being able to obtain bait and ice so near and so easily, they have their trawls extending from Cape Sable to Cape North, in Cape Breton, and a consequence is, in my opinion, that the best fish are prevented coming inshore, and are lost to our shore fishermen. Without being able to get the bait, they could not do this. 19. The herring-fishery is entirely an inshore fishery. None are taken outside. It extends round the entire coasts of Nova Scotia, New Bruns wick, Prince Edward Island, and Lower Canada, and are chiefly taken by Dominion fishermen, and used as bait, or sold as such to the Ameri cans. 20. The food of the mackerel is various, depending upon the season. A small fish called a shrimp, and another called brit, and small herring, the season's spawn, are the food they generally feed on. These small fish are found in the tide-rips, in the small bays, and off from points, but close to shore, within half or quarter of a mile from shore or less. That is where the mackerel are first found, after rising from spawning. They feed there for a time, until they fatten, and then they begin to move farther off from shore, and, after getting fat, move southward again. The mackerel breed along the coasts and in the bays of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and Quebec. They go into shoal water to spawn, unless disturbed. 21. The privilege of transshipping their fish is a very valuable one to American fishermen, because it saves so much of their time at the very season when it is most valuable. In this way they are enabled to make an extra trip at least, and some of the more fortunate two trips, and, consequently, make very much larger catches. Without this privilege I don't believe many of the Americans would prosecute the mackerelfishery on our coast. I form this belief from my intercourse with the American fishermen themselves. 22. The privilege of fishing in the American waters is of no use or benefit to Canadian fishermen. 28. United States fishermen coming into our inshores professedly for fishing purposes, take advantage of it to trade with the inhabitants, and sell them large quantities of smuggled goods from the United States. This is quite prevalent. 29. I have been for the past four weeks ill from the effects of a tumor which I have had removed from my throat, and am still in the doctor's hands and unable with safety to move about much. JAS. A. NICKERSON. Sworn to at Halifax, in the Province of Nova Scotia, this of July, A. D. 1877, before me. -day WM. ACKHURST, J. P. No. 38. In the matter of the Fisheries Commission at Halifax under the Treaty of Washington. I, JOHN L. INGRAHAM, of North Sydney, in the county of Cape Bre ton, in the Province of Nova Scotia, fish merchant, make oath and say as follows: 1. I have been engaged in the business of fish merchant during the past twenty years, and am at present so engaged,and am well acquainted with Canadian fishermen and American fishermen in this locality, also with the buying and selling of fish, bait, ice, and fishermen's supplies. 2. I have seen at one time two hundred American fishing vessels in this harbor. In the summer of eighteen hundred and seventy-six I have seen as many as thirty at one time. In these vessels there are from ten to fifteen men each. 3. These vessels fish often within one-half mile of the coast, north and east of Cape Breton, and all around. 3. They take from one hundred to five hundred barrels of mackerel each; some take from one hundred to one thousand quintals of codfish. This amount they take each trip. They get them around the shore, on Grand Bank, and wherever they can. The mackerel men make two trips, and those catching codfish make an average of at least two trips, some making three trips. 4. I have been well acquainted, during the past 20 years, with the amount of fish taken by vessels around this locality, and have found that the amount varies, being sometimes good for two or three years, poor for two or three years, and again good for another two or three; they have been rather poor for the last two or three years. This year the mackerel have been reported plenty east of Cape Breton, and will probably be plenty again for a number of years. 5. The fishing is mostly done with hooks and trawls, the Americans trawling in deeper water than Canadian fishermen. 6. The American heavy trawling destroys the mother fish. They catch the larger fish, and often throw over any small ones taken, thus injuring the fisheries. 7. During and before the Reciprocity Treaty of eighteen hundred and fifty-four the American fishermen fished close to the shore, following the fish close in and wherever they could take them. Since the Treaty of Washington, they come along the shore, fish close in, within three miles of the coast. When our armed vessels come, they leave; and when the armed vessels go away, they return. 8. The inshore fishing is, in my opinion, of more value than the fishing outside, as the fish make in towards the shore, and if the Americans could not come in and get bait, and ice to keep their bait, the outside fishing would be of no benefit to them whatever, the privilege of fishing and purchasing bait, purchasing ice and supplies being invaluable. 9. The American fishermen use seines in deep water and also on the shore, and Canadian fishermen complain that by these seines they take great quantities before they can get inshore, and break up the schools of fish. 10. The Americans get all their bait within three miles of the shore, in the bays, creeks, and harbors, by fishing for it with hook and line, and with nets. They also purchase large quantities, because, they say, it is more convenient to do so at times. 11. The American fishermen, to my knowledge, take codfish and haddock inshore by trawling and hooking them, and Canadians in the same way. 12. Almost all herring fishing is done inshore, and the Americans catch them for bait, and they often sell herring thus caught. This I know well, having purchased herring from them all along the coast. 13. The Americans catch very large quantities of mackerel, and I have often heard American masters say that our mackerel is much superior to that caught in American waters, being larger and fatter. 14. I have been informed by American fishermen that the mackerel feed inshore and places where the water is shoal, and I have known American vessels catch a cargo of over 300 barrels of mackerel in a week within five miles of this harbor, and I know of no reason why it may not be done again within the next eight years. The right of transshipping at such a time would be of great value, as also the right to land and dry their nets. 15. The right of taking bait in our bays, creeks, and harbors is, in my opinion, invaluable, for without this privilege they would be unable to prosecute the fisheries. 16. American fishermen purchase bait at times, because, they say, |