86 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



The sea or red bass were particularly so. Very few were caught dur- 

 ing the summer. Whiting were also scarce. In fact, it was one of the 

 poorest seasons I have known in eighteen years. We had a fairly good 

 supply of shrimp." 



Fish factories on Delaware Bay offensive. — A petition was 

 received by the United States Fish Commission December 4, 1884, signed 

 by twenty-nine fishermen and citizens of Lewes, Del., reading as follows : 



" Knowing the interest which our Government, during the entire 

 century of its existence, has taken in the coast fisheries, as well as the 

 care and expense with which it is now guarding that industry, we pre- 

 sume to address you on a subject which is of vital importance to us as 

 fishermen and citizens of the town of Lewes. Less than two years ago 

 license was granted by the town commissioners to establish fish factor- 

 ies on the bay. We say little of the means by which this license was 

 obtained. Our people were deceived. The fishing interest of the place, 

 which amounts to from $8,000 to $10,000 annually, Avas entirely de- 

 stroyed, and even the air we breathe was bartered away. In this dis- 

 tress we ask your aid. We ask you to remove from our shore that which 

 is depriving us of our means of subsistence." 



Habits of alewives.— Under date of July 26, 1884, Mr. E. M. Stil- 

 well, one of the Maine fish commissioners, inquired : 



Do the alewives spawn more than once 1 ? Do they visit our river, the 

 Penobscot, to spawn, and then return to the ocean to die '? There is an 

 important case now before me where the alewives ascend the river 

 through a good fishway ; when they return, after casting their spawn, the 

 water is low ; the fishway is closed, owing to the factory using the water, 

 and the fish return to the ocean through the flume of the factory and 

 get ground up in the machinery. If the alewives born in the river re- 

 turn to spawn but once, the fact constitutes a very important point in 

 the case before me." 



Under date of August 6, 1884, Professor Baird replied as follows : 



" It is impossible to answer satisfactorily your inquiry in regard to 

 the habits of the alewife. We know, of course, that they spawn in fresh 

 and perhaps slightly brackish waters, and that the young return to the 

 sea. We also know that the adults do likewise, but whether they come 

 back again the second time it is difficult to say. My own guess is that 

 they do, and so far as we know, most of our fishes spawn for several suc- 

 cessive years, as the trout, the salmon, the carp, &c. We infer that 

 the shad does the same, from the fact that very few dead fish are found 

 floating in the rivers or lying on the shores and in the bay. The fish 

 are known to run out of the Saint John's Biver in the summer and to 

 fatten up in the fla^s at the head of the bay, when they become even 

 better than they are in the early spring. Where shad are undisturbed 

 for a long time we find them of enormous size, up to 10 and 12 pounds; 

 thus showing that they continue to grow for a long period. 



