REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 5 



under the supervision of your Commissioners. Tlie trout reached the 

 streams in excellent condition, and in many large shipments not a 

 single specimen was injured or apparently weakened in the transit 

 from the hatchery to the streams in which they were set free. Your 

 Commission acknowledges, on behalf of the State, its obligation to 

 the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad for their courtesy 

 in allowing free transportation of the trout and the messenger who 

 accompanied them. Acknowledgment and thanks are also due the 

 fishermen who assisted gratis in the work of distribution. 



DISTRIBUTION OF COPIES OF THE LAWS OF THE STATE RELATING TO 



FISHERIES. 



Even the best of laws regulating the fisheries, particularly the hook- 

 and-line fisheries in various and widely distributed streams often 

 remote from settlements, cannot be rigidly enforced unless they have 

 the active support of those in whose interest the laws are made. The 

 Commissioners must have the intelligent co-operation of the fishing 

 pubUc in this vital matter, and to this end copies of the laws, with 

 index and tables of essential points, have been issued in convenient 

 pocket editions and widely distributed. Copies of the laws can 

 always be had on application to the secretary of the Commission. 



Your Commission was created in the interests of the fisherman, 

 and has been single hearted in its endeavor to maintain and improve 

 all the fisheries within its jurisdiction. Its success has in no small 

 measure been due to the appreciation of this fact by the intelligent 

 representatives of all classes of fishermen. 



THE COLLECTION OF DATA AND STATISTICS RELATING TO THE COM- 

 MERCIAL FISHERIES. 



Dry and unreadable as statistics proverbially seem, they have at 

 times a mighty importance in such matters as the commercial fish- 

 eries. They constitute one of the chief means of diagnosis of the 

 condition of the industry, the pulse by which improvement or decline 



