134 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



"AN ACT regulating the seining of menhaden in the rivers of the commonwealth. 



"(Ch. 52.) Section 1. Be it enacted, The mayor and aldermen of any 

 city or the selectmen of any town situated upon or adjacent to any river 

 in which the seining of the fish is now or may hereafter by law be pro- 

 hibited, may, upon the petition of twelve or more legal voters, and after 

 due notice and hearing thereon, grant permission to such persons, upon 

 such condition and with such restrictions as they may see fit, to seine 

 menhaden therein, if, in their judgment, the same is consistent with the 

 public good : Provided, however, That in all cases where two or more 

 cities or towns are situated upon such waters and interested in said 

 fishery, no action shall be had except upon petition to each of them, and 

 by their concurrent vote. 



"Sec. 2. If any person so licensed shall exceed in any manner the 

 terms of said permission, or violate any of the conditions thereof, he 

 shall be subject to the same penalties as would attach to seining without 

 such license. 



"Sec. 3. Such license may be altered or revoked at any time, by the 

 concurrent action of the municipal authorities granting the same." — 

 [March 15, 1858. 



"AN ACT relating to the taking of menhaden in the waters of Buzzard's Bay and Vine- 

 yard Sound. 



[1856, ch. 176. Additional act, 1870, ch. 249.] 



"(Oh. 212.) Section 1. Be it enacted, From and after the passage of 

 this act it shall be lawful for anj^ person to take menhaden by the use 

 of the purse-seine, so called, in the waters of Buzzard's Bay or of Vine- 

 yard Sound, or the waters of any bays, inlets, or rivers bordering on or 

 flowing into the same : Provided, That no authority shall be hereby given 

 to use any such seine at the mouth of any river where there now is or 

 where there may hereafcer be a herring fishery established by law, un- 

 til after the fifteenth day of June, in each year : And provided further, 

 That no authority shall be hereby given to use any seine in the waters 

 around Nantucket or the islands belonging thereto." — [May 9, 1805. 



In the report of the commissioners of iuland fisheries for 1877, p. 65, it 

 is stated : 



" Fishing with seines in the Merrimac, at the season when the menha- 

 den stand in, is forbidden by law. The moitth of the river has, however, 

 never been defined by the governor, as permitted by statute ; and it was 

 represented to the commissioners that valuable menhaden fisheries ex- 

 isted in this neutral ground of brackish water. Therefore, nnder the 

 personal promise of the fishermen to capture no shad or salmon, and 

 with the guarantee of responsible persons in Newburyport, the commis- 

 sioners agreed to defer the definition of the river-mouth, and to assume 

 that these menhaden were not positively included in the river proper." 



