374 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



England," are all of the rivers of the United States known to have been 

 frequented by the sea-going Salmo salar, with the possible exception of 

 certain rivers, tributary to the Saint Lawrence, in the northern part of 

 New York. 



The governments of these states having appointed boards of com- 

 missioners to whom was confided the task of restocking the exhausted 

 rivers, other states, one after another, adopted like measures, and in 

 1872 the United States Government established a commission to inquire 

 into the condition and needs of the fisheries in general, with authority 

 to take steps for the propagation of food fishes. 



The new England commissioners turned their attention at once to the 

 two most important of their migratory fishes, the salmon and the shad. 

 The utter extermination of salmon from most of their rivers compelled 

 them to consider the best mode of introducing them from abroad. 



Agents were sent to the rivers of Canada, where for several years 

 they were permitted to take salmon from their spawning beds, and some 

 hundreds of thousands of salmon eggs were thus obtained and hatched 

 with a measure of success. After a few seasons permits for such oper- 

 ations were discontinued, and the only foreign source of supply there- 

 after remaining open to the states was found in the breeding establish- 

 ments under control of the Canadian Government, and even these were 

 practically closed by the high price at which the eggs were valued. 



In 1870 it had become clear that to a continuation of efforts it was 

 essential that a new supply of salmon ova should be discovered. At- 

 tention was now directed to the Penobscot River in the state of Maine, 

 which, though very unproductive compared with Canadian rivers, might 

 yet, perhaps, be made to yield the requisite quantity of spawn. A pre- 

 liminary examination of the river brought out the following facts : The 

 Penobscot is about 225 miles in length. The upper half of its course 

 and nearly all of its principal tributaries lie in an uninhabited wilder- 

 ness, and in this district are the breeding grounds of the salmon. The 

 fisheries, however, are all on the lower part of the river and in the estu- 

 ary into which it empties, Penobscot Bay. There was no means of 

 knowing how great a proportion of the salmon entering this river suc- 

 ceeded in passing safely the traps and nets set to intercept them, but 

 supposing half of them to escape capture there would still be but about 

 6,000 fish of both sexes scattered through the hundreds of miles of 

 rivers and streams forming the headwaters of the Penobscot. It was 

 very doubtful whether they would be congregated about any one spot 

 in sufficient numbers to supply a breeding station, and it would be im- 

 practicable to occupy any widely extended part of the river, on account 

 of the difficulties of communication. At the mouth of the river, on the 

 other hand, the supply of adult salmon could be found with certainty, 

 but they must be obtained from the ordinary salmon fisheries in June 

 and held in durance until October or November, and the possibility of 

 confining them without interfering seriously with the normal action of 



