In historical documents and in old books the present name 

 Woods Hole is spelled in a different way. The old name "Woods 

 Holl" is considered by some historians of Cape Cod (Conklin, 

 1944) to be a relic of the times prior to the 17th century when the 

 Norsemen visited the coast. The "Holl", supposed to be the Norse 

 word for "hill", is found in the old records. The early settlers 

 gave the name "Hole" to inlets or to passages between the islands, 

 such as "Robinson's Hole" between Naushon and Pasque Islands, 

 or "Quick's Hole" between Pasque and Nashawena Islands, and 

 Woods' Hole between the mainland and Nonamesset Island. In 

 1877 the Postmaster General ordered the restoration of the 

 original spelling "Wood's Holl", which remained in force until 

 1896 when the United States Post Office changed it back to Woods 

 Hole and eliminated the apostrophe in Wood's. The change was 

 regretted by the old timers and by C. O. Whitman who had given 

 the specific name "hollensis " to some local animals he described. 



At the time of his arrival at Woods Hole in 1871, Baird was 

 well known to the scientific circles of this country and abroad as 

 a naturalist, student of classification and distribution of mammals 

 and birds, and as a tireless collector of zoological specimens. He 

 maintained voluminous correspondence with the scientists in the 

 United States and Europe, and was Permanent Secretary of the 

 recently organized American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. To the general public he was known as a contributor to 

 a science column in the New York Herald and author of many 

 popular magazine articles. His newly acquired responsibilities 

 as Commissioner of Fisheries greatly added to his primary duties 

 as Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution which was 

 primarily responsible for the establishment of the National Museum 

 in Washington. As a scientist, Baird belonged to the time of Louis 

 Agassiz, Th. H. Huxley, and Charles Darwin. Like Agassiz he 

 attended medical college but never completed his studies, although 

 the degree of M. D. honoris causa was later conferred upon him by 

 the Philadelphia Medical College. 



In the words of Charles F. Holder (Holder, 1910), "he was a 

 typical American of the heroic type. A m.an of many parts, virtues, 

 and intellectual graces, and of all the zoologists science has given 

 the world .... he was most prolific in works of practical value 

 to man and humanity. " 



Commissioner Baird attended m.any Congressional hearings 

 and conferences with state officials and fishermen at which the 

 probable causes of the decline of fisheries were discussed and 

 various corrective measures suggested. Fronri the lengthy and 

 frequently heated discussions and evidence presented by the fishermen 

 and other persons familiar with the fisheries problem.s, he became 

 convinced that an alarmingly rapid decrease in the catches of fish 

 had continued for the last 15 or 20 years. Such a decline was 

 particularly noticeable in the case of scup, tautog, and sea bass in 



