16 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
different parts of the country for the purpose, being partly the result of 
answers to a series of questions issued in printed circulars prepared for 
the purpose. 
The reports of the Massachusetts commissioners of inland fisheries 
have furnished much valuable information, as well as the report of the 
commissioner of Maine. 
Colonel Lyman, one of the Massachusetts commissioners, has also 
supplied some manuscript records of the weirs and pounds of Massa- 
chusetts, which have contributed greatly in making up these statistical 
tables. Especially important, too, have been communications from 
Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown ; Capt. Prince Crowell, of East 
Dennis; Vinal N. Edwards, of Wood’s Holl; Mr. Samuel Powel, of 
Newport, R.I.; Capt. Benj. Ashby, jr., of Noank, Conn.; Captain 
Hurlbut, of Gloucester ; Captain Babson, collector of the port of Glou- 
cester, and others hereafter enumerated. 
To Mr. G. Brown Goode, assistant of the U.S. Fish Commission, I 
am indebted for very important service in collecting information and 
preparation of statistical tables, nearly all of which have been made up. 
by him for the purpose. The primary divisions into which an article 
like the present will naturally fall are as follows : 
I. The natural history or biology.—This considers the fishes and cer- 
tain other marine animals as they occur in nature, and without partic- 
ular reference to their relations to man, except incidentally, or as 
they existed in North America before its occupation by the white man. 
Under this head will be included, first, an account of the individual — 
habits and general history of each species included in my subject, and 
next a general view of our marine fishes as a whole; e. g., their physi- 
cal and mutual relationships; their migrations and movements ; their 
abundance; their food; their diseases and fatalities; and finally, their 
reproduction and growth. 
II. Methods of capture.—After consideration of the inhabitants of the 
sea, without any special relation to man, we naturally proceed to the 
history of the various methods by which they are pursued and captured ; 
this involving the subject of fishing grounds, boats and vessels, men, 
the apparatus of capture, bait, manner of fishing, packing on shipboard, ~ 
and disposition of offal. Results of the fisheries and their statistics 
will naturally fall under this head. 
III. Utilization of the products of the jisheries.—As food, clothing, ! 
medicine, fertilizers, industrial applications, ete., or whatéver applica- 
tions are made of the fish after they have been caught. The general 
statistics of fishery products may come under this head. 
IV. Maintenance and improvement of the jJisheries.—This subject nat- 
urally follows those preceding, and does not usually come up for con- 
sideration among communities until real or imaginary searcity or diffi- 
culties of capture, etc., begin to press upon their members. 

