LIV REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
also participated during two or three seasons in the shad operations on 
the Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers. He assisted in preparing and 
installing the exhibits of the Fish Commission and National Museum ~ 
at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and in 1883 had 
charge of packing the large collections sent by the Fish Commission to 
the London Fisheries Exhibition and their subsequent installation. In 
1885 he was made the first superintendent of the Wood’s Holl Station, 
which was then permanently organized, and continued to fill this posi- 
tion until June of this year, when his final illness unfitted him for act- 
ive service. Captain Chester was a member of the party which con- 
ducted the experimental work of cod hatching at Gloucester, Mass., 
during the winter of 1878~79, when by unwise exposure he contracted 
a serious lung trouble, from which he never fully recovered. He also 
took part in the subsequent experiments of the same nature at Wood’s 
Holl, and during the winter of 1885~86 was in charge of the work. 
The Commission is indebted to him for important improvements in the 
methods of hatching cod and lobster eggs and in the dredging appli- 
ances. 
Notice of Capt. Nathaniel EL. Atwood.—It is very appropriate that men- 
tion should be made in this connection of the important services ren- 
dered to science and to the fishery industries of New England by Capt. 
N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, Mass., who died November 7, 1886, in 
his eightieth year. His warm devotion to the interests of the Fish Com- 
mission, and his frequent contributions to its fund of information, made 
him an honored associate in its work, and his loss will be deeply felt by 
those who enjoyed his friendship, Starting life as a fisherman in 1816, 
when only nine years of age, he continued actively in this vocation for 
half a century, at the end of which time he turned his attention to the 
curing of fish in his native town. In 1857 he was elected to the State 
house of representatives, and subsequently to the State senate, in which 
he served as a member of the committee on fisheries. Captain Atwood 
was an accurate observer of natural phenomena, and possessed a won- 
derfully retentive memory, lacking only the necessary training to fit him 
as an accomplished naturalist. He gave valuable assistance to Dr. D. 
Humphreys Storer in the preparation of his monograph on the fishes of 
Massachusetts, begun in 1843, and was afterwards a constant helper of 
Prof. Louis Agassiz in his ichthyological studies. The Fish Commis- 
sion is indebted to Captain Atwood for most of its information respect- 
ing the history of the important fisheries. of Cape Cod, and in many 
other directions it has had the benefit of his varied experiences. 
13.—PUBLICATIONS BY THE FISH COMMISSION DURING 1886. 
Annual Reports.—The annual report of the Commissioner for 1883, 
of which only the press-work and binding remained to be done Janu- 
ary 1, was not received from the Printing Office until August 11. 
Most of the report for 1884 was also in type at the beginning of tha 
