The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-07-17
PORPOISE CATCHING
Business That Would BE Profitable II
One Could Catch Enough Porpoises.

| A business That Would BE Profitable II
one Could Catch Enough Porpoises.
A Groton man, Benjamin j. Gardi-
ner OF Poquonnoc Bridge, who dwells
at the head of the Poquonnoc estuary,
in which oysters are raised on poles
stuck in the mud, is trying hard to do
paying business catching porpoises
All fishermen try to catch a porpoise if
chance offers, because it is valuable
fish, but no one ever tried to make por-
poise catching a vocation until Gardiner
undertook to do it. His neghbors
laugh at him. A year ago or more
Captain Gardiner fitted out couple
Of sail boats, hired a crew of eleven
men, had coarse seine made half
mile in length or longer, and sailed
away to the porpoise grounds. Nearly
all saltwater harbors and estuaries are
frequented by the fish, which come
pulling and tumbling into them in
chase of their prey ali kinds of small
fish But the best ground is Coecles
harbor at Shelter Island
In the waters of this harbor hun
dreds of porposes are sometimes seen
and a wild and rollicking scene it is,
with acres of the sleek, black animals
tipping over and over like floating car
boys, as they plunge after their food.
To landsman they seem to be doing
it for fun, but it is serious fun to them
and to smaller fish. Shoals of macker-
ell, herring, bony fish, and. in the sea-
son, porgies, are their game, and the
sharp jaws of the porpoise, each armed
with forty-five or fifty teeth, do muir
derous work that stains the sea with
crimson. Often mackerel and herring
shoals are driven nearly on the beaches
by their remorseless pursuers, or up
broad rivers almost to the head of tide
water. PROPOSES have been seen in
the Thames river as far north as Kite
maug. seven or eight miles above the
city, in pursuit of flying bony fish.
Captain Gardiner sailed into Coecles
harbor one day last summer, dropped
his big seine overheard, and next
morning his men rolled half a dozen
fat porpoises upon the beach. Sew
eral other casts were made, but none
were as successful as Captain Gardi-
ner had anticipated that they would be-
All through the summer he fished for
porpoises, but with only partial sue
cess. The big fellows broke through
his stout netting and away the whole
shoal rushed out through the opening.
They toppled over his seine and wound
themselves up in it, and so made it
practically useless to stop the escape
| CT
Strengthened.
Captain Gardiner lost money trying
to catch porpoises last season, but he
went to work again this spring with
redoubled energy. He has not been
successful yet; the catches have not
remunerated him for the expenses of
the trip. A week or more ago his
crew had two days of fine luck, taking
nine porpoiSes on one day and twenty
five on the next. So not yet have
Captain Gardeners efforts decided the
question whether it will pay to system
atically hunt porpoises, but he means
to continue the business. The biggest
porpoise he has caught weighed eight
hundred pounds. The little ones weigh
not more than fifty or one hundred
pounds.
Not a particle of the porpoise is
wasted in preparing it for the market.
First, the skin is taken off, which is
superior even to alligator hide for car
riage leather and for shoes. The skin
is nearly an inch thick, but it is planed
down until it becomes nearly translu-
cent The blubber is tried out, Weld
ing an oil equal to the best sperm oil
for lubricating, and two other grades
are made from the head and jaw, both
being superior to that from the blub-
Der. The jaw oil is used by jewellers
and watchmakers, who pay at the rate
of fifteen dollars a gallon for it.
The meat is cut out and sold
to those who are fond of it. There
is a tradition that anciently it was
so highly esteemed that it was in de-
mand for the table of royalty. In the
times of Queen Elizabeth it was served
to the mobiles of England with bread
crumbs and vinegar. 1t is q chief
dainty of the Greenlanders. 1t is dark
colored and bloody. The carcass of the
porpoise is thrown in with menhaden,
and little more oil is tried out of it,
average porpoise is worth in all about
forty dollars.
The trap commonly used to catch
them with is a large net of strong rope,
which is stretched over large area OF
water, lager beer barrels being attached
to the edges at intervals. By an APP
paratus worked from the shore the
barrels are forcibly submerged while
the porpoises are coming into the feed.
ing grounds, and when number OF
them are directly over the net the
strain on the barrels is relaxed, and
they rise to the surface behind the fish,
which find themselves imprisoned in q
pen. 1t costs about three thousand
dollars to equip a tirst-class trap.-Neu
London Cor. NJ Y. Sun.