XXX\111 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



in the water-tank of a locomotive from the Ohio River, at Wheeling, to 

 Cumberland on the Potomac. Not many years after, the young fish 

 began to distribute themselves in numbers, and in time the entire river 

 became thoroughly stocked with the new game. Starting at the head- 

 waters of the river, the bass found immense numbers of Cyprinidce, 

 such as chubs, minnows, suckers, &c., as also of crawfish, insect-larvfe, 

 and the like, which had been i^reviously, for the greater part, undisturbed, 

 except, perhaps, by the pickerel, and, having an ample supply of food, 

 in accordance with the theory of natural selection, they multiplied to a 

 prodigious extent. Tear by year they extended their limits toward 

 the mouth of the Potomac, until at the present time they are found in 

 great abundance near Washington, and form a very attractive object 

 of sport. 



I am, however, informed by residents on the Upper Potomac and its 

 tributaries that tlie bass are becoming scarce, and tliat their numbers 

 are much less than a few years ago, while, as a concomitant, the immense 

 schools of smaller fry, formerly so abundant, have disappeared, a min- 

 now in some localities being a rare sight. This is a very natural con- 

 sequence, and must produce its result. In the increasing scarcity of 

 herbivorous fish, the bass will be driven to feed more and more upon 

 each other, and after a time a certain average will be established, per- 

 haps the same as that existing in the waters of the Mississippi Valley 

 and elsewhere, where, although indigenous, they are in proportion fewer 

 than in the Potomac River. 



An entirely different condition of things prevails with the anadromous 

 fish, among which we may enumerate as best known the shad, the ale- 

 wife, or the fresh- water herring, the salmon, the smelt, and probably 

 the striped bass. These fish spend the greater part of their existence 



ties suspended over the nest ; then, with a piece of gauze net, dip them up and empty 

 them into a vessel containing as much pure water as will sustain them until yoil can 

 convey them to your pond ; and then, as I before ol>served, they can support them- 

 selves, while young, on insects, «&c. Or, early in April or May, if you are fond of 

 angling, you cau go to a stream iu which they are plenty, and, in catching fifteen or 

 twenty, will almost always get nearly oue-half the number smaller ones. Pat these 

 into your pond unhurt ; and, as they have not spawned that season, they will soon 

 stock the water. Then all that remains to be done is to supply your pond with other 

 small fish, minnows, &c., for food for the large bass, and they will increase in quan- 

 tity just in proportion to their supply of food. Hence I am satisfied that if a farmer 

 would convert one acre of his land into a pond, well supplied with fresh water, that 

 acre would raise and support more fish yearly (the value of which would be more) 

 than any other two acres cultivated in any other manner — the expense of cultivating 

 deducted from each. 



"Mr. William Shriver, a gentleman of this place, and son of the late David Shriver, 

 esq., of Cumberland, Md., thinking the Potomac River admirably suited to the cul- 

 tivation of the bass, has commenced the laudable undertaking of stocking that river 

 with them ; he has already taken, this last season, some twenty or more in a live box, 

 in the water-tank on the locomotive, and placed them in the canal-basin at Cumber- 

 land, where we are in hopes they will expand and do well, and be a nucleus from which 

 ■ the stock will soon spread." 



