420 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



in the work of sUad-hatcbiiig, arriv^ed ia Washington, and Mr. Green, 

 after learning the plans and intentions of the commission, left, accom- 

 panied by the whole party, for Angasta, Ga., where the first station 

 was to be established. 



The intense heat affecting Mr. Green unfavorably, be was obliged to 

 return home, and the work fell to the hands of the rest of the party to 

 perform. 



Mr. Mason reports that a visit to the fish-markets on the 21st found 

 only twenty shad offered for sale, and on visiting the fishing-grounds 

 the fishermen asserted they did not think fifty shad would be taken in. 

 one day within ten miles of Augusta. Remaining at the fisheries until 

 11 p. m., only one shad was caught, though six drift-nets were in use ou 

 that portion of the river which he visited. 



Until the 28th, the time was spent in visiting the different fisheries 

 above and below Augusta^ for a distance of twenty miles along the 

 river, with no better results. From sisteen trap-nets in a rapid portion 

 of the river he saw four shad taken, all dead from the rapid water 

 crowding them against the lower side of the crib. 



On the 28th, receiving advice from Mr. Welsher, who had gone north 

 prospecting ou the Neuse Eiver, the camp on the Savannah was aban- 

 doned and the whole party proceeded north to H^ew Berne, N. C, and oa 

 May 1st selected a location for a hatching-station fourteen miles up the 

 river. At this place from eight to fourteen shad were taken nightly 

 until the 6th, when the rains had raised the water in the rivers until the 

 only fishing possible was with skim-nets. Twospawners weretakenon the 

 5th with skim-nets, from which 45,000 eggs were taken and impregnated. 



The river continued to rise until, on the 12th, the party were driven 

 from their camping ground and returned to New Berne. The young 

 Siiad were hatched with scarcely any loss of eggs, and were turned into 

 the river, with the exception of about one hundred, carried to New 

 Berne for exhibition. 



Ou the 15th, orders having arrived from Washington, the party divid- 

 ed, Mr. Holton and Mr. Chester Green going to the Roanoke River and 

 selecting a locality for a hatching-station near Weldon, N. C, and 

 Messrs. Mason and Welsher came to Washington. 



Messrs. Holton and Green at this point were so fortunate as to obtain 

 and imin^egnate a quantity of spawn of the striped-bass or rock-fish, 

 Roccus Uncatus, which they 'placed in hatching-boxes and treated them 

 in the same manner as shad ova and succeeded perfectly in bringing 

 them to maturity in about the same period of time required for shad. 



4. — OPERATIONS ON THE POTOMAC RIVER. 



On the 16th the station on the Potomac River was established at the 

 south end of Long Bridge, at Jackson Tavern, Virginia. Messrs. Knight 

 and Gibson, owners of extensive fisheries in the vicinity of Washington, 

 and owning the fishery at that point, afforded a supply of spawning shad 



