406 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



* F. C. Report for 1880, p. 405. 



t The number derived from F. N. Clark's count of fraction of quart is 36,800 ; see F. C. Report for 

 1880, p. 575. In February, 1887, W. F. Page found 33,450 in a quart of eggs, from Northville, by 

 actual count. 



J W. P. Sauerhoff obtained the following in May, 1886, from counts of 1 gill: Large eggs, 22,752; 

 ordinary eggs, 28,800. 



§Other counts: F. N. Clark, from count of 1 fluid ounce (F. C. Report, 1882, p. 820), 12.800; G. A. 

 Seagle, from count of 4 cubic inches, 9,485; E. il. Robinson, from 2 counts of 8 cubic inches, 7,G25 and 

 6,875; W. F. Page, February, 1887, from count of^l pint of eggs, from Shasta, Cal., 0,530. 



II In February, 1887, W. F. Page counted 13 ounces of eggs, from Northville, yielding 13,998 to the 

 quart. 



Petition to restrict fishing in Massachusetts. — The follow- 

 ing petition was prepared late in the summer of 1886 for presentation 

 to the next session of the Massachusetts legislature: 



To the honorable the senate and house of representatives in general court 



assembled : 



The undersigned respectfully represent that they are citizens of the 

 Commonwealth of Massachusetts ; that to us it appears that there is 

 danger of the exhaustion of the food-fishes formerly so abundant in the 

 waters upon our sea-coast; that we believe that one reason for the 

 scarcity of such fishes is occasioned by the setting of stationery ap- 

 paratus and the use of purse-nets and fykes, set and used in seasons 

 which prevent their natural increase ; that the scarcity now universally 

 complained of is not occasio ned by want of food, by the alleged impuritj'^ 

 of the waters, nor by the depredations of one or more kinds of fishes 

 upon others, but is due partly to overfishing and unseasonable fishing 

 with the use of wholesale and improper apparatus. 



That the time has come when, in order to preserve our fisheries, the 

 general court should interfere by i^roper and timely legislation; that 

 for a period of nearly forty years permission has been granted for set- 

 ting and maintaining traps, pounds, and other apparatus, to the gradual 

 but constant decrease of the fishes both in number and in size. 



That the catching of fishes has been monopolized by a few, to the in- 

 jury of the rights which belong to all, and to the probable exhaustion 

 of the fisheries themselves ; that it is but just that the experiment 



