little shanty and set, mackerel-nets, and are now prosecuting the netfishing there. They went last year and did not do anything, and having the fishing gear they went this year, but I don't know what the result will be. I want to state this because they belong to my own town.

Q. Is it not singular that they should follow an unprofitable business a second year?-A. No; not in fishing.

Q. Would you do so?-A. Here is the inducement: A man goes into the fishery business, and gets apparatus to work with, which costs money, and he prosecutes the fishery, but makes a failure that year. He has all the gear left on which he spent hundreds of dollars, and only needs to spend a little to replace some articles, so he tries again and hopes for better luck. That is the way with fishermen.

Q. Would they go three, four, five, or six years if unsuccessful?—A. If they don't do anything this year they may wind up. Half a dozen went last year and have gone again this year. What the future will be with them I don't know.

Q. Is it not a fair conclusion to arrive at, that their business was profitable last year, as they have gone again this year?-A. No. I know it was not profitable last year from the quantity of fish they caught and brought in; they would hardly pay their expenses.

Q. Is it in accord with the American acuteness and keenness in business to follow up a business that is unprofitable?-A. Men are not accustomed to follow a business that is unprofitable, but a second year might be tried. These men went with good faith last year, and they said mackerel did not come. I will give you the reason why the mackerel did not come. The ice remained in the gulf last year very late, hence the water was colder than it would have been under ordinary cir cumstances. When the ice went away the mackerel did not come in, as was expected. The ice went away earlier this season, and men have done better.

Q. That is another result from what you have heard ?—A. I heard all about that. I did not go there.

Q. Did I understand you correctly that your people had not carried on mackerel-fishing profitably since 1873; is that the case ?-A. On our coasts?

Q. In the gulf?-A. They have not made any profit in fishing in the gulf for mackerel since 1873. All the fishing there has been poor. Q. Nor on your own coasts ?-A. On our own coasts it has not been a successful and lucrative business. Our fleet has been gradually diminishing.

Q. Do you consider it strange that from the commencement of the operation of the Washington Treaty the mackerel fishery should have been unsuccessful?-A. I don't think the mackerel know anything about the Washington Treaty, but those who went there years before the Washington Treaty went into effect caught 261 barrels on an aver age-those were three vessels which went there-and since we have had the right to fish inshore they have not averaged anywhere near as many. That statement I gave in on paper in my remarks yesterday.

By Mr. Thomson:

Q. I was speaking to you about mackerel; are you aware that in the opening of the year, as they come on the coast they are blind ?—A. 1 know the fishermen have got the notion that they are blind, that they have scales over the eyes.

Q. Do you agree with that idea?-A. They compute it to be because they don't bite; but I don't think that is the reason they don't bite.

Q. Did you ever examine the fish ?—A. I have examined the fish and seen a membrane partly over the eyes, but I did not think that was the reason why they did not bite.

Q. I only want to know whether they are blind in that manner ?—A. I don't believe they are blind.

Q. Would you undertake to swear they are not blind?-A. I would not swear so, but the evidence of what I have seen convinces me that they are not blind. If you will allow me to explain: We put nets out and drift with them in the bay. A vessel may try with hook and line and may not catch any, and therefore say the mackerel are blind because of a membrane partially over their eyes. I have cast nets out, and by and by we have seen mackerel rise to the top of the water, and have not got any; but after it begins to grow dark they run right into the

nets.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. Is it a gill-net?-A. Yes. It looks to me as if at first, they saw the net.

By Mr. Thomson :

Q. Then you swear that the film does not blind the fish?-A. I don't think it makes them blind.

Q. It moves off in course of time?-A. It moves off some. I never noticed how much.

Q. If you have not examined them closely you would not put your opinion against the opinions of those who have examined them ?-A. No. If any one has examined them closely, and I presume some have, and been convinced that such is the fact, that the membrane goes off, I would say nothing against it.

Q. In speaking of the bluefish before the senate committee of the Rhode Island legislature, at its January session in 1872, you are reported to have said:

In Provincetown Harbor, from a very early period until the horse-mackerel made its appearance, the fish called "whiting" was immensely abundant. Since the horsemackerel has appeared they have been gradually driven out, and now a specimen is hardly ever seen. The horse-mackerel has driven out a great many kinds of fish, for it is the avowed enemy of every species it can master. These fish first appeared south of Cape Cod about the year 1832. I was thirty years old before I saw a specimen. Finally they found their way into our harbor, and completely destroyed the mackerel fishery for a time, and even now render it nearly unprofitable.

Q. Did you not make that statement?-A. I did not make any such statement. The fish called bluefish in 1764 disappeared from there after the Indians all died. We call it bluefish at Provincetown; it formerly had little or no marketable value. It is known by different local names in different places. It is called bluefish in Massachusetts and along Connecticut shore. It is known as horse-mackerel on the shores of Rhode Island, and the bluefish is horse-mackerel. Instead of reporting what I said they put instead of bluefish horse-mackerel. I never said horse-mackerel drove the whiting away. If you go down to Chesapeake Bay you will find they call it tailor.

Q. I am not asking you about the nature of the fish, but whether you made use of the language reported.-A. I said bluefish drove them. away, and they have reported me as saying horse mackerel, because they call bluefish horse-mackerel there; it is the same fish precisely. Q. Then the only trouble is that the reporter has put you down as saying that horse-mackerel drove the whiting away, whereas you say you said it was bluefish?—A. I said it was bluefish, and bluefish did it.

Q. If the reporter had said that bluefish had driven the whiting away, it would have been all right?-A. It would have been all right. Q. And practically horse-mackerel is the same fish?-A. The bluefish of our place and horse mackerel of the shores of Rhode Island is the same fish precisely.

Q. You don't like horse-mackerel to be put into your mouth instead of bluefish?-A. When I say bluefish I mean Temnodon saltata, but they put down horse-mackerel, and I did not say that.

Q. That term is not sufficiently scientific.-A. I used the term bluefish, which is our local name; at Rhode Island they call it horse-mackerel.

Q. Did this fish, whether called horse-mackerel or bluefish, or by whatever name it is known to naturalists, drive of the whiting and be an enemy to all fish?-A. Yes; it not only drove the fish away, but it drove me off.

Q. And you are also reported to have said on the same occasionWhen I was a boy, great quantities of Spanish mackerel came into Provincetown Harbor. They afterwards began to diminish in numbers, and I have not seen a specimen now for twenty years. They went away before the bluefish came, and before a weir, trap, pound, or anything of the kind was set in New England waters. I think the great enemy of the fish of our waters is the bluefish. They are ready to eat almost every fish that they can take. We know that they drive.almost everything.

A. I said all that, and I indorse it; but I want to be permitted to make an explanation, because it may be construed that I had made a misstatement. When I said Spanish mackerel I meant fully-grown mackerel, which grow two-thirds of the size of our common fully-grown mackerel, and are known to us as Spanish mackerel, but are called great-eyed chub on the coast of Connecticut. That has totally disappeared. The Spanish mackerel now in the markets of Boston and New York is not the Spanish mackerel of the days of my boyhood. It is another fish belonging to the same family.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. There was in your younger days a kind of mackerel very similar to the common mackerel, which went locally by the name of Spanish mackerel, and which looked so nearly like the common mackerel that ordinary fishermen could hardly tell them apart. That fish has disappeared to such an extent that Professor Baird would give $20 for a specimen.A. Yes.

Q. That is what you referred to?-A. That is the Spanish mackerel I referred to.

Q. There is another Spanish mackerel which is a very choice foodfish, and which is found to some extent on the southern New England coast, but none are taken north of Cape Cod ?—A. We have caught rare specimens.

Q. The horse-mackerel you were speaking of is a species of tunny?A. Yes.

Q. How large have you seen them?-A. Eight feet long, and I should think weighing five or six hundred weight.

Q. It is very coarse food?-A. I call it so; we don't make use of it for food as a general thing.

Q. Then you come to bluefish. What is generally spoken of in New England as bluefish, sometimes called horse-mackerel and referred to there (printed extract from Captain Alwood's speech) under the name of horse-mackerel, is a fish very fine for food when fresh ?—A. It is called very good.

Q. That disappeared for a generation, for sixty years and more, from the New England shores?-A. Yes.

Q. That is the bluefish which is now so voracious ?—A. Yes.

Q. It attacks mackerel, menhaden, and any other fish of the kind?— A. Yes.

Q. Still it is a valuable fish when fresh ?-A. It sells pretty well.

Q. Are not menhaden, mackerel, and squid taken in large quantities in weirs and pounds on the coast of Massachusetts and different places, say south of Cape Cod ?-A. Yes; they catch a good many mackerel in pounds about Monomoy Point and some other places. I don't know to what amount.

Q. They take menhaden in the same way ?—A. Yes.

Q. And squid in the same way ?-A. Yes.

Q. When you have spoken of the increase or decrease of fish, did you refer to the absolute quantity of fish in existence or only to the relative increase or decrease in particular localities?—A. In particular localities; for over this immense area I don't know.

Q. When you say the bluefish disappeared for sixty years from the Massachusetts coast, you don't mean us to understand that it had be come less numerous in the world ?—A. I don't know where they went.

Q. And they came back?-A. They came back after a long time. Q. Generally the habits of fish are so uncertain you cannot account for their appearance in or disappearance from certain localities; is not that the case with mackerel and squid and all those varieties of ocean tish ?-A. That is the case with all varieties of ocean fish.

Q. Take this particular speech that has been quoted from, it comes from one of Professor Baird's reports?-A. It may be so.

Q. That was a speech you made in opposition to legislation against trawling, was it not?-A. No; against legislation against weirs, traps, and pounds.

Q. In opposition to legislation against them?-A. Yes.

Q. You were arguing before that committee that it was not wise to prohibit even weirs, traps, and pounds?—A. It originated in the dimi nution of fish in Buzzard's Bay, and they asked us to make a law to prohibit certain modes of fishing practiced in the waters of the Commonwealth; and I opposed that.

Q. You were making a speech against prohibition ?-A. It was to show there was no necessity to make a law to prohibit certain modes of fishing.

Q. Mr. Thomson, when inquiring of you as to your observations of the spawn of fish and growth of the small fish from the spawn in a particular number of days, put to you finally some such question as this: But you have not observed the same phenomenon since?—A. I have not as particularly observed it.

Q. Do you mean that the same phenomenon had not existed since, or that you had not noticed it, and not made it a subject of observation ?— A. For certain reasons I was induced to make a very critical examination.

Q. And you have made no special observation since ?-A. No.

Q. Do you think that the present knowledge possessed by man can account for the disappearance or appearance of bluefish or the disappearance and reappearance of squid?-A. No; it cannot.

Q. In regard to inspection, as I understood you, the difference between shore and bay mackerel is one well known to dealers in mackerel-A. Yes.

Q. But the bay mackerel are not branded as such, nor shore mackerel

as such-A. No; they may stencil them; but the inspection law does not provide for any brand being put on them.

Q. Is it not the custom where fish come packed from the provinces and are afterwards inspected in Massachusetts, to get a card from the Massachusetts inspector marked "Re-inspected"?-A. I don't know whether they do or not.

Q. You were asked whether our mackerelmen did not leave Magdalen Islands as early as probably the middle of September; how late have you fished for mackerel there?-A. I think one year I staid to the very last of September. I am not sure when I passed down.

Q. You were asked about the harbor of Malpeque, the best harbor in Prince Edward Island?-A. It was the harbor of Cascumpeque.

Q. Is Cascumpeque the best?-A. It is the snuggest and safest. Malpeque is a larger harbor.

Q. Is not Malpeque the best harbor?-A. It is the largest harbor, and will hold the most vessels; that is where I was cast away.

Q. The Sailing Directions for the East Coast of North America from Belle Isle to Boston, published in London by Charles Wilson, state:

Malpeque Harbor is on the eastern side of this bay, and is very superior to any other on the north coast of the island; it has 16 feet on the bar at low water, and 18 or 19 at high water, ordinary springs, with space and depth enough for any description of vessel.

The bar of Malpeque runs off from Fishery or Bilhook Id., E. by S., 24 m.; it then runs to the southward, so as to join the shore to the eastward of Cape Aylesbury. This bar is exceedingly dangerous in bad weather, the bottom being sandstone; then all signs of a channel are obliterated by heavy breakers. The northern part of this bar, to the distance of 1 m. to the eastward of Bilhook Id., is very shallow, in some places only 4 feet at L. W.

Vessels may anchor outside the bar, in 7 to 5 fms., to wait for a pilot, and all strangers should endeavor to take one, and not attempt to take the bar in blowing weather. A. That is where I was cast away. Our vessel was wrecked and two others.

Q. Is that what passed then for the best harbor?-A. Cascumpeque is the best and safest harbor.

By Mr. Davies:

Q. When were you at Cascumpeque?-A. I was at Cascumpeque in 1838.

By Mr. Foster:

Q. The Sailing Directions state in regard to Cascumpeque Harbor: Cascumpeque Harbor.-The entrance to this harbor is N. N. W. W., 20 miles from the principal entrance to Malpeque, and S. W. W., 5 miles from Cape Kildare.

This harbor was formerly the most convenient port in the island for loading timber, and there was a very large quantity shipped; there being at that time 18 feet water. At present not more than 11 feet can be calculated upon at H. W., spring-tides; but strong N. E. winds will sometimes raise the water a foot higher. The tides are very irregular at certain seasons.

A stranger bound to this port must always take a pilot; in fine weather you may anchor outside, in 5 or 6 fathoms, in bottom sand. In easterly gales the bar is covered by a line of breakers.

The channel, from one bar to the other, and between sands only covered by a few feet, is 100 fathoms wide, with anchorage in 24 and 34 fathoms; the best berth is just outside the entrance, where the sands dry on each side. When inside the harbor the vessels generally load at a wharf.

Q. Those are the two best harbors on the north side of the island?A. Yes; there are several other smaller harbors like New London and Tracadie.

Q. So far as you have known, have there been more shipwrecks at Prince Edward Island, or at Magdalen Islands?-A. Well, I think most of our