the Massachusetts inspection law. In regard to mess-mackerel, there is a peculiar way of dressing them.

If I have an order for mess-mackerel I take number ones and cut off their heads and the tails or caudal fins and put them into kits. They are then sent off as mess mackerel. The very largest and fattest number ones which are more than 13 inches long are selected for mess-mackerel. Now, when you come to number twos you still want mackerel which are somewhat fat, and mackerel may be longer than 13 inches and still not be good enough for number ones-because these would be number twos— that is, their size will make them reckon pretty well, while the little fat on them will bring them in as twos, but these fish must be, I think, 11 inches long from the nose to the foot of the tail. If the fish are smaller than this they cannot be considered number twos. Now, when you come to number threes, if the mackerel are poor and such as I have been telling you of as having been caught in nets at their spawning time, they are all number threes according to our inspection law. Being poor they cannot be called anything but number threes, but if they are 13 inches long, like number ones, they will pack for long threes. This law has been altered in Massachusetts several times, and at one time the big ones which were large enough for threes were branded threes south, while those which were shorter than 13 inches, and yet poor, were branded threes north, but such mackerel cannot be threes if less than 10 inches long. If poor and 10 inches long, and fat but less than 11 inches long, they can be twos, and if poor and 10 inches long they may be threes, while if they are smaller than this they are classed as number fours. This is the Massachusetts inspection law, which I think is now in force. Q. Are the inspection laws of Maine in substance like those of Massachusetts-A. I think that they are very much the same. I may remark that some change may have taken place in these laws, in view of the fact that we tinker at and modify our laws every year.

Q. Are mackerel which are not inspected in the United States sold to any considerable extent for consumption in the United States market? Do the mackerel which come from the Canadian provinces, and which are branded here, not being repacked and inspected in the States, find a market in the United States?-A. I think that most of the mackerel which comes from Nova Scotia or other British provinces is reinspected when it arrives in the States. A good many fish dealers are appointed deputy inspectors, under the general inspection act, and when this mackerel comes in they repack it. They buy the mackerel in large barrels, and if large and fat they take these mackerel out and make of them mess-mackerel, putting them into kits and placing their own brand on

them.

Q. Is there a well known distinction made among fish-dealers and consumers between what is called bay mackerel and shore mackerel ?—A. O, yes.

Q. When a United States vessel comes up here and catches mackerel off British waters, are these mackerel termed bay or shore mackerel ?— A. They are called bay mackerel, but those caught on our coast are called shore mackerel.

Q. Which, for a series of years, has commanded the highest price?-A. Our shore mackerel has commanded a good deal the highest price for quite a number of years; but when I first went to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in 1835, and obtained good trips of mackerel, bay mackerel brought the most; Í should think that there was then more than $1 a barrel difference in favor of the latter.

Q. And what has been the difference between the best shore and best

bay mackerel during the past few years?-A. The bay mackerel were very large when I first went to the bay to fish, and that was their recommendation; they were also in good condition physically, that is, fat; but of late years, the bay mackerel which our vessels have caught there have been very poor. The sixteen voyages I mentioned as having been made to the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Provincetown have all been failures, on account of the inferiority of the mackerel, and the small quantity that has been taken by these vessels.

Q. I notice that the collector at Port Mulgrave, David Murray, says that most of the mackerel caught about Prince Edward Island are small, and that the best and largest mackerel are taken about the Magdalen Islands; this was in 1874.-A. The catch was biggest at the Magdalen Islands.

Q. This corresponds with your statement?-A. Yes; I think that better mackerel are taken around the Magdalen Islands than to the westward of them. Up to the present time we always find a vast number of small mackerel, tinkers and blinks, on the fishing grounds; but when I first went to the gulf, in 1835, and during the three years when I was cod-fishing there, in 1824, 1825, and 1828, we depended wholly on mackerel for bait, and I never at that time saw a small mackerel; they were all large, and this was afterward the case.

Q. How large is mackerel spawn?-A. They are about as large as the head of a common pin.

Q. Did you ever happen to know of Canadian vessels coming into American waters to fish?-A. Yes; I saw a vessel in Provincetown Harbor which I was told belonged to some place in the British provinces, but I did not go to her.

Q. When was that?-A. I could not tell. I dare not go as far as that. Q. I have your statement made in 1873 with which I can refresh your memory. You then stated, "In the autumn of 1871 a Canadian schooner of some 70 tons anchored in this port several times in company with the American fleet. She is the only instance of a colonial fishing-vessel of which I have any knowledge here."-A. That is my statement. I had forgotten the fact of having made it. I still remember that people told me about the schooner, and I made inquiry about her.

Q. You and Mr. Gifford, the collector, made a joint statement in 1873?— A. I remember it, and I have no doubt but what there was a schooner there belonging to the provinces.

Q. We find that mackerel are in abundance at a given place one year and then very scarce there the next year; I want to know whether you attribute such appearance and disappearance to overfishing or to the migratory habits of the fish.-A. O, fish do not always come to the same place every year. Some years you may get them plentifully in a locality, while they may not come there another year. It is impossible for me to know the cause of their not coming to any place, but I sometimes attribute it to the fact that their bait may have taken a different course. The mackerel come to Provincetown every year at spawning time, but they do not want any bait then; and the fishermen then know just where to go to catch them, though they do not know where these fish are during other parts of the year; but when they are round a shoal, they go there for bait.

The Commission met.

THURSDAY, September 20, 1877.

The examination of Mr. ATTWOOD was resumed.

By Mr. Foster:

Question. Have you been engaged in the cod fishery ?-Answer. Yes. Q. How early and how extensively was this the case?-A. My first voyage was made when I went to sea in 1820. I then proceeded to the Labrador coast. I have been there a good many years since-I might say from year to year. In 1820 and 1821 I fished on that coast; in 1822 I made a trip in the North Atlantic; in 1823 I was again on the Labrador coast; in 1824 I was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and I was also there in 1825 and 1828. I suppose I might go on in this manner until 1866.

Q. Have you been cod-fishing on the Newfoundland Banks?-A. Yes; I was during four seasons on the Grand Banks.

Q. When was this?-A. I do not know as I could tell you that just now, but I think that I first went there in 1833.

Q. How extensively is the cod-fishing business carried on from and in the neighborhood of Provincetown?-A. We have a fleet of vessels 48 in number this year from Provincetown on the Grand Banks, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence we have 17 vessels, which numbers together will give the total number so employed coming from Provincetown this year.

Q. Whereabouts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence do your cod fishermen fish-A. Now, I am told they go to the Magdalen Islands for the pur pose of procuring herring on their first coming into the bay, and afterward they go to Bank Bradley, fishing mostly there and also sometimes over toward the west shore. They go down sometimes to Bank Orphan, but they depend more particularly on Bank Bradley for their catch.

Q. Is there any cod-fishing, to your knowledge, pursued by American vessels anywhere within three miles of the shore?-A. Not in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but on the coast of Labrador, of course, all the cod are taken inshore.

Q. How is that done?-A. My first voyages were made to that coast. The vessels anchor in a harbor, and when the caplin come in the cod come in after them, and boats are sent out from the vessels to catch the cod.

Q. They are also caught there now by seining?-A. Yes; some sein. ing for cod was done when I was there, but I went in vessels which caught the fish with the hook.

Q. That was north of Mount Joly?-A. North of Mount Joly we fished early in the spring, in a few harbors, to the westward of Blanc Sablon. Every year we went there we passed through the Strait of Belleisle, and by Cape Charles, going up to what we call Grosse Water, although I do not now find that name on the chart.

Q. Excepting up there, do American vessels fish for cod anywhere within three miles of the shore, to your knowledge?-A. No.

Q. Is fresh bait essential to the prosecution of the cod fishery, and what bait was in former years used in cod-fishing?-A. We have been extensively engaged in cod-fishing for a good many years in Province. town; I suppose that this has been the case ever since it was a settled place. About 1819 or 1820, we had no vessels on the Grand Banks; and when I first went to sea in 1820, 1822, and 1823, my first three voy. ages were made to the Labrador coast, because we did not then have a single vessel on the Grand Bank; but afterward we began to send ves

sels there. In 1852 we had 63 vessels which prosecuted the cod fishery on the Grand Bank; in 1853, we had 81 vessels; in 1854, 87 vessels, and in 1855, 83 vessels, and so it went along for years; but in 1866 we had the largest fleet of which I have any remembrance, for we then had 91 vessels in all, of which 19 were fishing with trawling-lines in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the rest were on the Grand Banks. These vessels which went cod-fishing that year carried with them 4,098 barrels of salt clams, and brought home 93,663 quintals of fish.

By Mr. Davies:

Q. This relates to Provincetown?-A. Yes; to our town alone. That bait was sufficient to catch 93,663 quintals in 1866. We had 87 codfishing vessels ten years before. The year when I went on the Banks we carried and used clams altogether. Sometimes when vessels would get short of bait, or their clams would not prove very good, one vessel would help another; some would secure their cargoes before they had used all their bait, and if there was any prospect of bait getting short we would catch what birds we could, and sometimes cut bait out of the stomachs of the fish, this being a species of what we call bank clams; they are mussels of considerable size, and they made very good bait on certain grounds.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. You, then, had no fresh bait except that which was obtained on the Banks themselves?-A. No. From year to year we carried clams for bait.

Q. Is there an abundant supply of clams to be found about Massachusetts-A. Along our New England coast there are any quantity of them. A great many are found from the State of Maine down the coast; there are a great many about Portland and Cape Cod, and on Essex County coast.

Q. Then there is an ample supply of clams on the American coast ?— A. Yes; provided that our banking fleet want clams for bait another year they can get just as many as they desire.

Q. What other bait do the cod-fishers take from home; are any squid found on our coast?-A. Squid are very uncertain on our coast; say about Barnstable County, or north of Cape Cod, where I reside, some years they are quite plentiful. In the days of my boyhood, for a good many years, they were so plentiful that they ran ashore in such vast abundance that they became a perfect nuisance. It was impossible, over so large an area of flats, to bury and take care of them, and so we had to put up with the inconvenience; but when the blue fish in 1847 made their appearance on the coast the squid became scarcer and scarcer. In 1867 I spent the summer investigating our fisheries along the coast, and I remember very well that I did not see a single squid during the whole summer in or about Provincetown Harbor or Bay. About five or six years ago, however, the squid came there in great abundance, and they were as plentiful as I ever knew them to be. There were vast quantities of them on the coast; but since then they have become scarcer and scarcer until this year, when there are not many of them there. I am told that one vessel which went from our port to the Grand Banks this year obtained some ten barrels of squid on the south side of us, near Chatham, and, putting them in ice, took them to the Grand Banks; but the squid are scarce on our side.

Q. That took place on the south side of Cape Cod?-A. Yes; they catch a good many there in weirs.

Q. Are squid to be found on the Grand Banks ?-A. Well, about five

or six years ago, about the time when squid were plentiful on our coast, they also became plentiful and vastly abundant on the Grand Banks. Almost anywhere there I was told vessels could heave to, come to an anchor, and catch as many squid as they had a mind to; for two or three years they carried a full quota of clam bait to these Banks as usual, but when they caught these fish in such a great abundance they hoisted up the clam bait which had cost them some $6 or $7 a barrel and threw it overboard. Those vessels which were light enough to bring this bait home, however, did so, and the next year they only carried one-half or two-thirds of their usual quota of clam bait.

By Mr. Thomson :

Q. When was this?—A. I could not exactly say; I think that it was about six years ago. Then perhaps about five years ago the vessels carried about one-half of their usual quota of bait, and finding squid plentiful again, they had either to throw their other bait away or fetch it home again. The year following they went to the Banks without clams, and then there were no squid to be found. Having no bait, for the first time, to my knowledge, vessels went for bait to Newfoundland. Since that they have carried some clams to the Grand Banks; the eighteen vessels which are there with hand-lines on the Banks, carry a full quota of bait, and do not go to Newfoundland for it, and have not done so. Those vessels that carry trawls have gone to Newfoundland for bait.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. How has the catch of the hand-line fishermen compared, with regard to profit, with the results of the voyages made by the trawlers ?— A. The catch has been better in their regard; some trawlers and some hand-liners had arrived before I came away. A larger class of vessels is used among hand-liners; the average tonnage of the hand-liners would be, I think, larger than that of the trawlers. About one-half of those that have come in are hand-liners.

Q. Have you ascertained the opinion of the owners of vessels engaged in the cod fishery upon the Grand Banks, as to the profit accruing from and the desirability of their captains going to Newfoundland for bait! -A. Before coming away, I had an interview with the agent of every vessel that belongs to Provincetown; and I never heard one of them say that they wanted their vessels to go in there for bait, while a great many were opposed to it. One of them informed me he had told his captains that if they went to Newfoundland after bait, they would be no more in his employ; draughts had been drawn on him to considerable amounts, and he was wholly unwilling to allow his vessels to go there. Two of his vessels had been in at Newfoundland for bait. The most of them considered that they would discontinue the practice, owing to the cost of the bait in Newfoundland and their long detention there in procuring it. This ran away with their time, and for that reason they came short in their voyages.

Q. Do you know whether the halibut-fishery is exclusively a deep-sea fishery-A. It is exclusively a deep-sea fishery. I have been engaged in it for several years along our coast, and I have also fished at Cape Sable, off Seal Island, Nova Scotia, and on the Western Banks. I was on Sable Island Bank one trip, and have been a good deal on our own coast in this relation. This is a fishery which is prosecuted in the deep sea. When I fished off Seal Island, I was perhaps eight or nine miles off shore in 25 fathoms of water. I got two trips there, but vessels outside of me -I could just see their masts on a clear day-got three times as many fish as I did. They fished so much for halibut on all the banks, even