Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-01-14
FORTUNE IN PoRPoIsEs.
Quent the Gulf of st. Lawrence,
and Are Valuable.

nay can almost always enjoy the sight o.
a number OF porpoises disporting them
selves upon the water in the %neighbor-
hood OF Tadoussac, says the New York
Sun. The great white cetaceans appear
like shapeless masses of blubber as their
arched backs show from time to time
above the surface. They are doubtless
attracted to the mouth of the Saguenay
by the large number of salmon which en-
ter the river throughout the season.
A large industry is expected soon tc
spring up in various parts OF the Gulf Of
st. Lawrence IN connection with the
hunting of pnTpoises. 1t has already
been attempted upon a small scale, but
the difficulty of capturing any great
number OF the animals has stood in the
way OF success. Now the difficulty has
been overcome through the observations
and experiments of Campbell McNab, a
Canadian hunter, who has spent many
years in the study of these animals.
The adult porpoise of the st. Lawrence
and the North Atlantic ocean is from
IL to Is feet in length. 1t somewhat re-
sembles a dolphin in shape, with large
dorsal fin and a mouth armed with many
strong and sharp teeth. Each porpoise
is believed to eat from one to three bar
rels of fish a day, so that 1t is difficult
to estimate the frightful ravages which
they make among the salmon, the her
ring and the cod. They are largely gre
garious, though they often hunt their
prey in couples. Mr.. McNab has often
rock to watch them catch salmon at the
mouth of a stream and sometimes a long
distance up a river, where they ollow
their prey. They chase a salmon into a
shallow and then two approach it from
either side. The salmon appears un.
able to move, as if paralyzed with fear.
Il he attempts to rush from Il OF his
pursuers he falls into the open mouth of
the other.
The porpoise is equally expert in fish
ing for the slippery eel. Mr.. McNab
opened one of these animals the other
day and found more than 40 cells in its
stomach. To prevent their wriggling,
and to aid digestion, the porpoise cracks
the skull of the eel between its teeth be-
fore swallowing it.
Like the eel, the porpoise can live a
long time out of the water. In fact, it is
virtually amphibious. Some time ago
Mr.. McNab shot a number OF the ami
mails which had been hauled ashore and
bound together by their tails. After
skinning another lot at some distance
and taking out the blubber, he turned a
few days later to the lot which had been
last shot. Unknown to him one had not
been killed outright. AS he passed in
front of 1t it growled at him like a dog"
he says, and openedIits jaws to snap him.
The porpoises are captured by being
imprisoned at low tide on the shoals,
over which they have journeyed when
the tide was high, }in pursuit of their
prey. Hitherto the difficulty has been to
find any barrier strong enough to retain
such enormously strong, heavy beasts
and so many of them together as are
sometimes enclosed. Mr.. McNab has
made the interesting discovery that the
| enormous nets through which they often
broke are not necessary to hold back
the brutes. They are unable to stand the
slightest vibration in the water, and sc
all that the hunter now finds necessary is
to fasten a long thin pole like a fishing
rod to a stake In the mouth of the
stream, the bay or the estuary within
which it is desired to retain the por-
poises. They remain to be stranded and
killed upon the shadows rather than ven
ture past the vibrating rod.
This sensitiveness is believed to have
It's seat in the ear of the animal, which
has so small an opening that it might
| almost have been made with a pin. Fol
years McNab has held firmly to this
theory, only to be laughed at for his
pains. He has now proved it beyond
per~adventure, and has reaped the frui,
of his persistence. At one tide the othel
day he secured 60 of the animals on thu
shoals of the Portneuf river a few mile
below Tadoussac, and next year will
pursue operations there upon a large
scale. He has secured a nine year leas'
of the shoal from the government ant
has apparently a fortune within eas5
reach. The skin and oil from a single
porpoise are worth from $50 to $50.
The utmost caution has to be takel
not to drive the animals away from thei,
haunts. II any of the blood or refuse o
their dead is permitted to reach the wa
ter, MI. McNab declares, they will de
sert the place entirely. This is the ex
PLANTATION he gives of the present absenc'
of porpoises from the River Ouelle ent
other places on the banks of the st. Law
renee, where a few years ago many 0
| them we're annually killed. The por
poise, he says, is one of the most intelli
fent animals created.
Unprotected Port.
The reputation Of a house often de