of years to some extent; I could not exactly say how long. In a rough guess, I would say, for twenty-five or thirty years.

Q. During this time if they are really so injurious, they have had ample opportunity for doing a great deal of damage?-A. They were somewhat few in number at first, but their number has been increased. Q. And in other words, the evil they do has been increased ?—A. I think so. I will tell you what I think the evil is more particularlythose who are able to build weirs, do so, and the hook fishermen, perhaps, will not then do so well as has been the case with them previously.

Q. In your judgment, they injure the fishing?-A. I think that they do, along the coast.

Q. Has this not had the effect of making your inshore fisheries, say during the last ten years, very much worse than they were formerly?— A. Well, our inshore fisheries are not so good as they have been in some times past; but again, when you look at the fish, you will find that they have changed their course from time to time. They may be abundant in one place one year, and the year following they may not be found there.

Q. Do you wish the Commission to understand that these traps do not injure the inshore fisheries at all?—A. I think that they do injure these fisheries.

Q. Then this injurious process has been in operation for twenty-five years? A. Yes; to some extent. There were only a few of them at first.

Q. And are your fisheries not getting worse every year, owing to this bad and destructive mode of fishing ?-A. If we admit that it is a destructive mode of fishing, certainly, that would be the effect from year to year; but I may fish for a certain kind of fish this year, and next year I may do better in the same fishery, owing to the greater abundance of the fish.

Q. Do you wish the Commission to understand that a destructive mode of fishing does in reality no injury to the catch of fish?-A. I did not say so.

Q. Do you wish the Commission to understand that if a destructive mode of fishing is pursued this year, the chances are that there will be a superabundant supply of fish next year?-A. There is a possibility of this being the case.

Q. I want to deal with facts. Is it not probable that this kind of fishing will destroy the fisheries entirely ?-A. I do not believe that it will do so entirely; but I think that it does injure the fisheries.

Q. But would it not destroy the fishery, as a fishery, and so far as a profitable fishing business is concerned?-A. O), I do not know about that; but I wish to be understood to say that, so far as pounds and nets are concerned, they certainly diminish the supply of fish along the shore.

Q. And if this is done from year to year the supply will become more and more diminished?-A. Well, that is a fair way of stating it, provided the fish came in from year to year in the same quantities.

Q. You have no guarantee that they will come in from year to year in greater quantities?-A. But we know that this is the case sometimes. Q. But this would be out of the ordinary run of things?-A. Yes. Q. And you would not attribute it to the destruction of the fish the year previous?-A. No.

Q. During the last four or five years has not the greater quantity of the mackerel caught on the American shore been taken from 5 to 6 miles,

or 10 miles, or even more than that, out from your shore?—A. I think so; I have not been fishing of late years, nor have I seen the fishermen fishing, but I have an impression that they take the mackerel with purse-seines, and that they take them off shore-10 miles off sometimes, and sometimes a great deal more.

Q. Practically, your mackerel fishery within 3 miles of the shore, for a number of years back, has not been of much value?—A. Our inshore fishery has been of very little value, so far as I know.

Q. You stated yesterday, if I understood you rightly, that you had taken some pains in watching the spawning of mackerel?-A. Yes.

Q. And that 30 days after spawning you found the little fishes?—A. Yes; they were then two inches long, more or less; and 25 days afterward again they had doubled in size.

Q. Do you think it possible that in this period the eggs would develop into young fish of the size you speak of?-A. I had no idea that this would occur so quickly; but I found that it was the case, and then I could not help believing it.

Q. You would not undertake to say positively that these little fish came from the eggs deposited some thirty days previously?-A. I think what I saw was proof positive to that effect for me. It was satisfactory to my mind. I found the eggs coming from the adult fish on a certain date, and then I saw the young fish in schools, two inches long, more or less, thirty days afterwards; they were as thick as they could be. I then said that these fish had come from those eggs, which were deposited there a month previous. I know that they did not proceed from eggs swawned the year previous. Now when I came to watch these schools 25 days afterwards, I found that the fish had doubled in size, and this was another proof of the circumstance of which I speak. I was at the time interested in this matter, not only because I expected to be appointed on the commission mentioned, but also because I wanted to investigate this question; this had been the case for years, and I put everything possible in this relation into the hands of Professor Agassiz, desiring to do what I could in the cause of science.

Q. How long ago was this?-A. It was in 1856.

Q. Have you ever observed such a phenomenon since ?-A. No; but this occurs every year. These fish yearly deposit their spawn there. Q. In what depth of water have you found this mackerel spawn?— A. In all the way from 15 to, I should think, 5 fathoms of water.

Q. The eggs were deposited on the bottom?-A. Yes. The fish go down in the day-time, when we see nothing of them. One would not know that they were there; but at night they come up. We suppose that these eggs are cast over the area of the bottom.

Q. There is only one year when you recollect of having seen this peculiarity?—A. I saw enough to convince me that this was a sample of other years. I had never before watched them so minutely.

Q. Is it not a rule known to scientists, in this regard, that fish which spawn on a particular shore, return to it from their deep-sea haunts?— A. I believe that this is a well-established fact with regard to freshwater fish, shad, salmon, and alewives, &c.

Q. That is a fair inference to draw with regard to sea-fish from the practice and habits of river-fish ?-A. Well, perhaps that may be so. Q. Then it would follow that the mackerel which spawn on your shores would return there again, and not frequent other waters ?—A. That would follow if that is a fact.

Q. And as far as theory is worth anything, the weight of opinion is rather in favor of this view?-A. I think so.

Q. Suppose a school of mackerel appeared on your shore at a particular time, and that a day or two afterwards, a large school should ap pear on the Nova Scotian shore, or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then these must be different schools?-A. Yes, certainly.

Q. Are there not among mackerel not only different schools, but also different species ?-A. What I understand by species is the same kind of fish.

Q. Yes; but still different species, or varieties, if you will?-A. There are a great many species which belong to the mackerel family, but they are not mackerel. We say that fish are divided into two grand departments, and then into orders, families, and genera, and lastly into species; and besides these there are varieties of fish.

Q. Are there not different varieties of mackerel ?-A. Yes. The mackerel found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are different from the mackerel on our coast. You can tell them apart.

Q. Do you say that there is any difference in the mackerel caught off the American coast, and the mackerel caught, say, off Prince Edward Island or elsewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence?-A. I think that these fish are of one species; but they do not seem to be the same with regard to their size and condition. The gulf mackerel are not in as good condition as ours. I have, however, known the time when the mackerel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence would sell higher by $2 a barrel than those caught on our own coast. This was in 1835, when I went into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. When we came home our mackerel fetched the highest price, and a higher price than the mackerel caught off our own coast.

Q. Why?-A. Because they were larger, and fat. They were caught off the Magdalen Islands; but now the gulf mackerel are not as large as those which are taken on our own coast, while they are dark colored and not in so good condition physically as ours.

Q. Then they are of a different variety?-A. You may call it so.

Q. When in the Gulf of St. Lawrence did you not fish off Prince Edward Island ?-A. I went there once, but while there, during a fortnight, I was cast away twice.

Q. That was in 1851-A. That was my experience with regard to fishing in the Bight of Prince Edward Island. I considered that the part between East Point and North Cape was a dangerous place for a vessel; and therefore, I kept away from there.

Q. And this was the only experience you had with respect to the fishing off Prince Edward Island?-A. One night while reefing a foresail, I fished over there and caught half a barrel or so of mackerel; we were on our way home and not full; at the time I was within three miles or one mile of the shore, but I would have caught them if the weather had been favorable.

Q. But mackerel were there?-A. Yes; and the weather was bad. Q. What were the size and quality of these mackerel ?—A. They were large and of good quality.

Q. Some American witnesses have sworn that Prince Edward Island mackerel were trash ?-A. I have seen good mackerel caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Q. Have you ever known any American fishermen to have been wrecked off Prince Edward Island since the great gale of 1851, between 1851 and 1876 ?—A. O, yes; the schooner Carrie P. Rich was lost near North Cape, Prince Edward Island, in 1873, in the great gale of that year. This was the year when the fishery clause of the Washington Treaty went into effect. Another of our vessels-we sent to the bay

that year-was wrecked in 1873 off the Magdalen Islands, in Pleasant Bay.

Q. I thought you said that the Magdalen Islands was a very safe place for vessels ?-A. I can clear that up. Pleasant Bay is a risky place to anchor in when an easterly or northeast wind is blowing. I made it a point when there not to do so under such circumstances. It is then a sort of trap; but if the wind is coming from any other quarter, Pleasant Bay is a good harbor. With an easterly wind, however, vessels are very much exposed there. I did not mean in anything I said regarding the safety of the Magdalen Islands to convey the idea that a vessel could not be cast away there.

Q. Is the sea not very tempestuous around the Magdalen Islands?A. The sea is tempestuous anywhere at sea when it blows.

Q. Does it not blow harder around the Magdalen Islands than it does anywhere else?-A. I do not know about that. I could not be at the same time in two places.

Q. Are gales not more frequent around these places than elsewhere?— A. I believe that the weather in the gulf generally is much the same. I have heard it said, I will acknowledge, that it is more squally down about the east end of the Magdalen Islands, and Cape North, and St. Paul's Island than at other places in the gulf.

Q. Is it not a fact that vessels leave the Magdalen Islands as early in the season as possible?-A. I know that they go there as early as possible.

Q. And do they not go away as early as possible?-A. I suppose that the reason why some vessels leave there so quickly is that they go there for ice. Our cod-fishers go there for that purpose.

Q. Do not mackerel-fishers leave these islands at an early date? Is it not a fact that they do not like to remain on this coast later than September, or the middle of September at the farthest?-A. I believe that I never staid there later than the 5th or 6th or the 10th of October. Q. Is it not a rule for vessels to leave there in the middle of September?-A. I left there in 1851 about the 15th of September; but if I had staid there I would have probably saved my vessel.

Q. Is it not a fact that the American vessels, as a body, and the British vessels which go there to fish; get away by the middle of September at the latest?-A. I do not think the vessels remain there as late as they do at Margaree, on the Cape Breton shore.

Q. And along Prince Edward Island?-A. There are Malpeque, Cascumpeque and some other harbors about this place; and consequently some think that it is a safer fishing place, owing to that fact.

Q. And yet you think that the Magdalen Islands is the safest place?— A. I cannot help saying that now. If you were to go into Cascumpeque harbor and stay there all the time, it would be a safe place. Q. Is it a good harbor?-A. Yes.

Q. And is it not a great benefit to those who fish around the island ?— A. Malpeque is not so reliable. The water of Cascumpeque is shoal, and the entrance is not very broad; a bar is there besides, and we thought some danger was to be feared in going in there, although in clear weather, and with very smooth water, you can go in there safely enough,

Q. Is it or is it not a good harbor of refuge ?-A. It is a good one for the small class of vessels.

Q. How many vessels may be there in safety?-A. I was never there but once, but I should think that along in the spring it might accom

modate 50 or 100 vessels. I do not know but that a whole fleet could lie there.

Q. You would be surprised to hear a man swear that there was not room enough in it for five or ten vessels ?-A. O, Lord, that won't do. There were more than ten in it when I was there.

Q. Is Souris Harbor also a good one?-A. I did not think much of it when I was there. I have heard, however, that a breakwater has been built there since. I do not know how secure they have now made it.

Q. Do you recollect that 8 American vessels were lost at the Magdalen Islands so recently as in 1874?—A. No. I was not aware of that. We had no vessels there in 1874 from Provincetown.

Q. During the last 26 years-since the great American gale of 1851— has there been any American vessel lost at Prince Edward Island, the Carrie P. Rich excepted ?-A. Well, I do not think or know of any other having been lost there. Several Cape Ann vessels might, however, have been lost there and I know nothing of it.

Q. But you are unaware of this having been the case?-A. I am not. I could not place any other vessel as having been lost there. Still I do not know but what a great many were lost there during this period. know that a great many Cape Ann vessels were lost that year.

I

Q. What earthly reason have you for supposing that the mackerel go far from the coast at all?-A. All I want to say positively on this subject is that they do go away. When the cold weather comes on, and the water becomes so cold that they begin to grow poor, they go off to parts unknown, and we can only conjecture as to the places where they do go. One opinion is as good as another in this respect.

Q. Is there anything incredible in the theory that they only go out a few miles from the coast in deep water and stay there?-A. I have no idea that they make very long migrations.

Q. Did you not say yesterday that mackerel caught in the spring are sometimes supposed to have a muddy taste?-A. I said that in former years we used to catch large mackerel in gill-nets very early in the season, and that at no other place except Provincetown; men whose business it was to take them could not then catch any elsewhere along the coast or with hooks, and people conceived the idea that these were the remnant of the mackerel which had visited the coast the year previous, and which had remained during the winter imbedded in the mud.

Q. Did not that look very much as if the theory I mention is true?— A. It did; but since then we find that, by putting nets outside, we can catch them anywhere along the coast south of that as well as in Provincetown Harbor.

Q. Have you never heard propounded the theory that mackerel go out into water deep enough to preserve them from the action of storms, and there hybernate all winter in the mud?-A. I do not know about that. People tell me that they have seen mackerel a little north of the Gulf Stream, and we all know where that is; but I believe that they go off into deep water which is of the temperature they require, and remain there; but I do not know what they do during the winter. I only know that they go off in the fall and return in the spring.

Q. They could come back poor even if they remained a few miles off shore-A. Certainly; but they are gone beyond our reach, and we do not know where they go for the winter.

Q. This is pure matter of conjecture, and the theory that they keep in their native waters all the year round would be just as plausible as