Newport daily independent., 1904-01-06
FORTUNE IN poRPoIsES.
Many of~ White Cetaceans Fre- quenf Gulf of st. Lawrence,
 and Are Valuable.


 American tourists crossing the St. Lawrence from the mouth of the Sague-
 nay can almost always enjoy theIsight of 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 shapeIess 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 to spring up in various parts of the Gulf of N St. Lawrence in connection with the
 hunting of porpoises. It 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, 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 F to IS feet in length. It somewhat re-
 sembles a dolphin in shape, with large
 dorsal fin.and 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 it 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 | fprey in couples MT. McNab has often peered over the edge of an oyerhanging rock to watch them catch salmon at the mouth of a stream and sometimes long distance up river, where they follow
 their prey. They chase salmon into shallow and then two approach it from either side. The salmon appears un- able to move, as if paralyzed with fear. If he attempts to rush from one of his pursuers he falls into the open mouth of the other.
 The porpoise is equally expert in fish ing for the slippery eel. MT McNab opened one of these animals the other day and found more than 40 eels in it's stomach. To prevent their wriggling, and to aid digestion, the porpoise cracks the skull of the eel between it's teeth be- fore swallowing it.
 Like the eel, the porpoise can live long time out of the water. In fact, it is virtually amphibious. Some time ago MT McNab shot number of the anil mals 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 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 it it growled at him Hike dog. he says, and opened it's 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. MT. 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 so z all that the hunter now finds necessary is to fasten long thin pole like fishing q rod to stake in the mouth of the stream, the bay or the estuary within which it is desired to retain the DOT z poises. They remain to be stranded and q killed upon the shadows rather than ven- * ture past the vibrating rod.
 This sensitiveness is believed to have E It's seat in the ear of the animal, which * has so small an opening that it might
 almost have been made with pin. For
 years McNab has held firmly to this I theory, only to be laughed at for his F pains. He has now proved it beyond < peradventure, and has reaped the fruit
 of his persistence. At one tide the other s day he secured 69 of the animals on the
 shoals of the Portneuf river few miles
 below Tadoussac, and next year will # pursue operations there upon larger
 scale. He has secured nine year lease # of the shoal from the government and
 has apparently a fortune within easy T reach. The skin and oil from single
 porpoise are worth from $30 to $50.
 The utmost caution has to be taken
 not to drive the animals away from their 8 haunts If any of the blood or refuse of N their dead is permitted to reach the wa X ter, MT. McNab declares, they will de-
 sert the place entirely This is the ex- a planation he gives of the present absence
 of porpoises from the River Ouelle and
 other places on the banks of the St. Law
 renee, where few years ago many ot
 them were annually killed. The DOT
 poise, he says, is one of the most intelli-
 fent animals created.
 Unprotected Port.
 The reputation of a house often de