324 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



F. Mather for transmission to Europe as follows : 



For Herr von Behr, Germany 40, 006 



For Tay Fishery Board, Scotland 20,000 



ForNational Fish Culture Association, England 30,000 



90, 000 



Eutield, Me., for Maine commission f>8, 000 



Total 608,000 



A few of the shipments have been heard from, and these all reached 

 their destinations safely. 



Buckspokt, Me., March 31, 1885. 



HO INJURIES CAUSED BY GILL-NETS TO WHITEFISH. 



By D. Y. HOWELX. 



[From a letter to M. E. Dunlap, Erie, Pa.] 



The gill-net is far more destructive to whitefish than any other ap- 

 paratus, for the following reasons : 1. Gill-nets are fished during every 

 month of the year when ice does not prevent, and the meshes having 

 been reduced to such size that millions upon millions of small young 

 whitefish, no larger than herring, are taken, and on account of their 

 size are unmarketable. 2. A very large percentage of whitefish taken 

 in gill-nets are not fit for food when taken out, for the reason that they 

 are strangled and immediately begin to bloat, and in many instances 

 are rotten or nearly so when brought to market; whereas when caught 

 in pound-nets they are all alive and healthy, and while in the nets have 

 had a chance to deposit their spawn .(if ripe), thus saving at least a por- 

 tion of spawn, which is utterly impossible while strangled and rotting 

 in a gill-net. As pound-nets are only fished in comparatively shallow 

 waters, few if any small whitefish are taken, as they inhabit the deep 

 waters until mature, and not until then do they seek their spawning 

 grounds or such localities where pound-nets are fished. We have fished 

 for about thirty years, and have never discovered any falling off in the 

 catch of whitefish, taking the average one year with another, until 

 the last few years, or since the lower end of Lake Erie has been filled 

 with gill-nets, covering nearly every rod of it, until the time when the 

 fish start for their spawning grounds, when they are closely followed by 

 the netters, and few are left to reach there, they not only destroying 

 the adult fish but the greater portion of the small fry, which are yearly 

 produced at great expense by the State hatcheries, few of which live 

 long enough to reproduce; and there is no gill-net, however small, but 

 destroys more fish ten times over than any pound-net, and not more 

 than one-tenth of the fish so destroyed are fit for food, which is simply 

 a criminal waste. 



Toledo, Ohio, March 31, 1885. 



