REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. ll 



as an admirable procedure, and that the Fish Commissioners of Maine 

 and Connecticut, at least, have recommended the provision to their 

 respective legislatures. Some of the advantages of the license pro- 

 vision ar^: The greater ease and accuracy of keeping track of lobster 

 fishermen; the providing of an appropriate punishment for willful 

 violation of the law, by revoking the license; the partial compensation 

 to the State for the use of these natural resources and for the expense 

 of the enforcement of the protective legislation. The provision in 

 the proposed act which limits the privileges of the lobster fishery to 

 citizens commends itself to the approval of your Commissioners on 

 the general ground that the fishery is one of those natural resources 

 of much importance which has not been developed by individual 

 enterprise, and also on the ground that the citizens of the State, 

 through their General Assembly, are bearing the expense of the 

 maintenance and development of the lobster fishery. Of the 171 

 lobster fishermen in Newport in 1908, 16 were native-born citizens, 

 17 were naturalized citizens, and the remaining 138 were not citizens 

 of this country. Your Commissioners do not base their recommenda- 

 tion upon the individual character of the men at present engaged in 

 the business, but upon the general principle of the prerogatives 

 of citizenship, which in this case are brought into special prominence 

 by the extraordinary increase in the value of the fishery and the high 

 proportion of foreign fishermen. 



PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF THE BAY. 



Your Commissioners have for several years collected information 

 with refei'ence to the temperature and density of the waters at 

 different localities and at different seasons, the occurrence of animal 

 and plant forms which serve as food fishes or as a direct menace to 

 the food animals, and to the occurrence of known and unknown 

 species of various kinds whose economic value is undetermined. 

 During the past year the occurrence of the "red water" in the Provi- 

 dence river, due to the phenomenal multiplication of the small 



