214 



THE OYSTER. 



up to the fresh-water streams where they deposit their 

 eggs. 



The supply for the market is caught during this 

 spring migration, when the fishes enter our inland 

 waters heavy and fat after their winter feast upon the 

 abundant food which they find in the ocean. They 

 spend most of the year gathering up and converting 

 into the substance of their own bodies the minute 

 marine organisms which would otherwise be of no 

 value to man, and their instincts impel them to bring 

 back to our very doors this great addition to our food 

 supply ; for their economic importance is very great, 

 and their extinction would be a national calamity, as, 

 without their aid, a great and fertile tract of ocean 

 would be beyond our control and valueless to man. 



In 1880 the fishermen of the interior believed that 

 the fishermen in lower waters, nearer the ocean, were 

 to blame for the decline of the fisheries. They com- 

 plained of the erection of pounds and weirs along the 

 shores of the salt-water bays and sounds, where the 

 fishes were captured in great numbers far away from 

 their spawning grounds. They believed that legisla- 

 tion could save the fishery, and that if these obstruc- 

 tions were prohibited by law and removed, and all the 

 shad were permitted to reach fresh water before they 

 were captured, enough eggs would be deposited to keep 

 up the supply, but that the destruction of such numbers 

 in salt water must necessarily result in extermina- 

 tion. 



This seemed to fresh-water fishermen to be good 



