your opinion, injure the fishing-grounds ?-A. We now use menhaden for bait, but when I first went fishing we did not do so. Our practice then was to grind up small mackerel for the purpose. Any quantity of these mackerel were at that time to be found along the coast, and plenty of them are there to be met with now. These fish were of no great account then, and so we ground them up for bait; and when we could not obtain any of them, we ground up for bait what you call gurry, the inwards of fish with the gills attached; we did not like to use large fish for the purpose. It is my opinion that the throwing overboard of the offal which comes from mackerel, and which, in the aggregate, is comparatively small in quantity, does no damage whatever to the fishinggrounds. This may not be the case, but I fail to discover that this practice does any such damage whatever.

Q. When any substance of that sort goes to the bottom of the sea, what provision of nature is there for getting rid of it?-A. I know of places in the sea where you can put down any animal matter, and it will be eaten up by marine animals, which we call sea-fleas. I have seen this happen on the Banks of Newfoundland. I was carrying menhaden for bait at the time, and, having cut off a piece, I lowered it on a hook, and in a remarkably short space of time I hauled it up and found nothing left save the skeleton. Every particle of flesh was eaten off. Clams, however, were not touched.

Q. What bait do the American fishermen almost exclusively use for mackerel -A. Menhaden, when they fish with hooks. The superiority of this bait over other kinds is such that when the fish can get menhaden they won't take any other. At first mackerel fishermen were afraid of this bait. It is a very bony fish, and they then thought that if it was cut up for bait the mackerel would soon get sick of it, owing to the num ber of the bones. There is a species of fish belonging to this family found on our coast which is exceedingly fat, we call them blue-backed herrings, and some preferred this fish for bait, as it was not so bony as the menhaden; but when the poorer mackerel got to be worth having, about everybody adopted menhaden for bait.

Q. When did bait-mills begin to be used?-A. About 1824 or 1825, I think. In 1826, when I first fished on this coast, we had bait-mills; previously they cut up bait with hatchets. Sometimes a double watch was set, and two men chopped bait all night.

Q. Those who fish now with bait use these bait-mills?-A. Yes; and menhaden if they can get them. This is the cheapest bait, and it is considered a good bait.

Q. What has been the effect of seining for mackerel in reference to the diminishing of the quantity of fish, in your opinion?-A. I think, though I do not know that I am right, that fishing in any locality with seines has a tendency, to a large extent, to increase the diminution and to make the fish scarcer. It disarranges them and drives them away probably to some extent. I think that, on the whole, seining is in a measure injurious to the fisheries, which will be better and stand better if prosecuted with the hook and by jigging in the old way, without seining. There is a diminution in the number of mackerel in certain places, though it is not seihing that has made them scarce in the gulf.

Q. Why do you say that it is not seining which has made them scarce in the Gulf of St. Lawrence ?-A. I understood that I had a right to communicate information that comes from others, and people who go to the Gulf of St. Lawreuce to fish tell me that they cannot make their seines work there.

Q. Why?-A. Because the water is too shallow and the bottom too rough. I never found a man who was successful with seines in the gulf.

Q. What is the food of mackerel, and where is it found?-A. We find small fish in mackerel, and sometimes they do not seem to have any food in their stomachs. One species of food found in mackerel is a small fish, very much elongated, which is called variously the sand-eel or lantz. I have found them 20 miles off shore in Massachusetts Bay, and they are also to be found around our coast in the offings. About all our fishing folks there call them the sand-eel, but down on the coast of Labrador just such a looking animal is called the lantz, and on the Grand Bank, where they are to be met with in vast abundance, they are also called the lantz.

Q. Then this lantz or sand-eel is not the exclusive property of inshore places-A. We find the same inshore in Provincetown harbor sometimes. They go down into the sand very rapidly, and by cutting along the sand-bars with a knife they can be made to jump out.

Q. You say that they are enormously abundant on the Grand Banks?— A. A fish that looks like them is to be seen there, but whether it is the lantz or sand-eel, or whether it is a distinct and different species, I would not pretend to say. Scientific men will, perhaps, be able to settle that point. That is one kind of bait. Another kind is young herring. We find them in the mackerel, which also feed on the young of their own species, which they devour so long as they are small enough to be swallowed. I have seen a mackerel with young mackerel in its stomach, and the caudal fin or tail sticking out of the large fish some little distance. Even then these mackerel would bite at the hook, for they seem to have good appetites. Everywhere I have fished there is also to be found in the mackerel what I believe to be, and what I think scientific men have told me, is a species of crustacean, belonging to the class of lobsters, crabs, &c.,-our fishermen sometimes call them Cayenne, but I do not pretend to know just what they are.

Q. Does it go by the name of brit?-A. No. What we call brit is a small fish, and what is called brit in other places is not a fish at all, but another sort of an animal. What we sometimes term brit is the little herring which the mackerel eat. This is the young of what we call seaherring.

This has been described by some naturalists as a distinct species of fish. Professor Peak, of New Hampshire, many years ago called it the Clapea minima, a distinct species, but I consider them to be the young of the herring. Besides these kinds of bait, the stomachs of mackerel are found filled with a very small red substance. In a load of mackerel this is sometimes the only food found in them. It seems to be a great favorite as food amongst these fish.

Q. Are any of these species of food which mackerel eat to be found away off in the ocean?-A. I have found the little crustaceans, which I mentioned, every where that I have fished for mackerel, in considerable abundance. Though voracious feeders, they will sometimes not bite when they have nothing in their stomachs; it would, however, be too long a story to tell you about their habits as to the minor details.

Q. Is the food of mackerel to be found miles and miles off shore?—A. Yes. There are herrings which spawn in certain localities along our coast about this time. The same species spawned around the Magdalen Islands last spring. They spawn up here outside of Boston light and away down along the coast of Maine in October; and probably the young of this species are more plentiful inshore than at any great distance from the land; but the young of these fish do wander away from the shore. One thing I do know in this relation is this-that the young produced from this spawn deposited this fall is found next spring

and all next summer around our coast; but as to how far they go out I am unable to say. Still I do not think that they are so plentiful ten miles from land as inshore.

Q. Where do mackerel spawn on the American coast ?—A. They first come in from the south, and come north gradually; and when they first make their appearance they are always met with having their spawn nearly matured.

Q. This is the case on their first appearance on the American coast ?A. Yes. The mackerel, like some other species of fish I could name, come in poor and destitute of fat, being only number threes according to the Massachusetts inspection law; and when they reach Provincetown those that have come in from the south have, I think, spawned at places at which they have found about the right depth of water for the purpose. I have never fished south of Cape Cod, and hence could not vouch for that; but the fish that come in east of Nantucket and South Channel do not fall in with land or a shoal channel until they strike back of Cape Cod, and, winding round, come into the southern part of Massachusetts Bay. In that locality I have fished with gill-nets, for a great many seasons, at the time of their arrival, and they only last till the bluefish make their appearance. We have six or seven weeks of mackerel fishing, and generally do something considerable at it; but after the bluefish come in the mackerel leave, as that drives them all off and ruins our fishery. I watched the mackerel more particularly with regard to their time of spawning in 1856, owing to the fact that a measure had passed the Massachusetts legislature authorizing the appointment of three commissioners to make investigations with regard to the artificial propagation of fish, and I expected to be named one of the commissioners; accordingly I went to the upper part of Massachusetts Bay, where it is about twenty miles broad, and I found these spawning mackerel there near the bottom. When I first began to catch them I discovered that the spawn had come to its full size, though it was not free to run from them, because the time for this had not yet arrived. I began to catch the mackerel about the 20th of May, and by the 1st of June we found that some of them were depositing spawn, and about the 5th of June, I think, the spawn was coming freely from them. I then took specimens and put them in alcohol, and fished until the season was over. By the 10th of June they had all deposited their spawn, and they then proceeded to the grounds where they expected to meet with better food, in order to fatten and recruit.

Q. Over how many days does the spawning season for a particular school of mackerel extend?-A. With the school that comes there, I do not believe that on the expiration of ten days from the time when they first begin to spawn a spawning mackerel is left.

Q. Then you call the spawning period, for a particular school, about ten days-A. Yes. I had previous experience with regard to this

matter.

Q. How soon, after they have ceased to spawn, do they begin to get fat enough to catch ?-A. We catch them as soon as we can. We do so all the time they are spawning and afterwards. Cape Cod mackerel spawn, however, by the 10th or middle of June. Then along about the last of July we take mackerel with considerable fat on them. Some years they become fat earlier than other years, and they increase in fatness until September, and pretty well into October, but when the water becomes cold they begin to get poor again and go off the coast. I have known the last school which has gone off the coast to be quite poor;

although packed as number ones, they nevertheless did not have much fat on them.

Q. When are mackerel in the finest condition off the coast of the United States-say from Cape Cod down?-A. I should say, taking one year with another-years differ a little-say from the middle of September to the middle of October, I could get as nice mackerel as could be procured at any time during the year, and then good mackerel, some years, can be obtained as early as the middle of August.

Q. Is it your opinion that some of the schools of mackerel found on the coast of the United States remain there during the entire season, or do they all go north of the coast of Maine ?—A. I think that the mackerel which come in south of us, and then strike into Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay, and north of that, and some of them farther eastward, come in from the deep water, where they have wintered, and strike on and back of George's Bank. This is my opinion. I consider that they come from their winter quarters all along the coast, from away down as far as Chincoteague Shoals to Newfoundland. I have no idea that the mackerel which are on our coast in the region of Cape Cod and south of that, or anywhere near that, ever come down the coast here and pass Halifax. I have never thought that they did so; but then I cannot bring evidence to prove that they did. I never saw mackerel between Cape Sable and Cape Canso, though I have seen some at Louisburg, on the south shore of Cape Breton Island, when I was there once. I never saw these mackerel, but I fully believe that mackerel do come in the spring northward by Halifax, and again pass this way in the fall. But then I think that after the mackerel which pass Halifax get to Cape Sable they pass off the coast.

Q. I wish you to state how late in the season you have successfully fished at the Magdalen Islands.-A. I could not remember the date exactly; but I should think that we never staid at these islands later than about the 1st of October, though it may have been the 10th of that month; but that is about the latest period.

Q. Have you found mackerel good in quantity and quality at the Magdalen Islands as late as the 1st of October?-A. I think that is the case. I believe that it was October before we left these islands the first year I was there; and we caught mackerel just before we left them.

Q. How young are mackerel good for anything to eat, and how long does it take them to attain maturity?-A. Permit me to go back to the time when I put the spawn I mentioned in alcohol, when I was expecting a commission to arrive from the government.

Q. It came after a while, did it not?-A. Yes; and just when the fishing was done. We had succeeded very well, and it worked in as nice as could be. I was then investigating the mackerel spawning time, and the growth and development of their young, as far as this was pos sible for me to do. And 25 days afterward I went out into the bay and found any quantity of schools of little mackerel, which, I should think, were about two inches long, though their length might have been a little less. However, I know that they were very small, and I put some of them in alcohol, marking the dates. Twenty-five days afterward, when I went out again, I procured a quantity of them which had grown double that size. I do not mean to imply that they were twice as long, but twice as heavy. I took some of them out and marked the date, and the first time I subsequently went to Boston I called on Professor Agassiz, as I had been with him for a considerable time, and gave him these several specimens. He said that he had never been previously able to ascertain these facts so clearly and so well, and was very much pleased

with them. I watched the growth of these young mackerel all along, and I saw them grow considerably from month to month, so much so that the same fall, in the latter part of October, I caught some of them with a very small meshed net on shore and split them. Mackerel were then very scarce and very high in price, and I sold them for as much as $6 a barrel. We do not find them to be very good food, but, in the absence of other and better mackerel, and in consequence of their very high price, some people will buy them.

By Mr. Davies:

Q. How long were they?-A. I think they might have been seven inches long.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. What do you call them ?-A. They are sometimes called spikes, but I do not know their proper name. I consider that they were hatched in the previous spring.

By Mr. Dana:

Q. They were about four months old?-A. Yes; four or five months.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. How old is a tinker?-A. Two years. These were the little ones which go off with the big ones to their winter home. The first mackerel that come in are always large, and spawners; and the last that go off the coast are also large; but these do not bite at the hook, and you do not catch them with the seine, because they do not show themselves. You would not know of their presence if you did not set nets for them and when they are taken in nets set anywhere along the coast, at Prov incetown, &c., a good many people imagine that they are the remnant of the mackerel which were there the year before, and which have been imbedded in the mud, and when they taste these fish they fancy that they taste mud.

Q. The mud taste is all due to their imaginations?-A. Yes; they are taken in nets all along the shore, and they do not bite the hook any where. When the next school arrives there appears a mixture of mackerel of different sizes, which take the hook, and are being caught in schools now. They are carried to Boston market, where they are culled and denominated "large ones," "second size," "tinkers," and "blinks." Any man who is well acquainted with them will make the same culling, as there seems to be a line of demarkation drawn between the different kinds, and it stands out prominently. Admitting this to be the fact, those that come on as blinks are from the spawn of the year before, while those which are called tinkers are from the blinks of the year previous, being then two years old, and those that are called second size are from the tinkers of the year before; when they grow up and mix with the bigger ones I do not know how they live or much about them; this is my opinion about these matters. You will find fishermen who will tell you they think that mackerel are six or seven years in getting their growth.

Q. Will you give us your opinion about mess-mackerel, and number ones, twos, and threes?-A. The law of Massachusetts, which compels the inspection and packing of mackerel, defines them. The largest and the fattest of the mackerel, provided that they are 13 inches long from the anterior portion of the head to the fork of the tail or caudal fin, are large enough for number ones; also, all mackerel from 13 to 17 and 18 inches in length, and the very largest mackerel, are number ones under