28* EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



tlie removal of all unnecessary obstructions, tbe establisliment of fisli- 

 ways or tisli-ladders over sucli natural or artificial dams as cannot other- 

 wise be ascended. 



It is, however, not less necessary to provide for the return of the 

 young fish to the sea. The most serious obstacle to this is found in the 

 arrangements known as " fish;bashets," intended more particularly for 

 the cajjture of eels descending the streams in autumn, but taking at the 

 same time immense quantities of shad, alewives, and other valuable 

 fish, including the salmon. This arrangement consists in the establish- 

 ment .of two walls of stone blocks or pebbles, laid up in the form of the 

 letter V^, the apex tending down the stream. At the ai)ex is placed 

 what is called a basket, which consists of a box in several compart- 

 ments, each with a bottom of slats set obliquely. The descending fish 

 that happen to be intercepted in the upper end of the V are carried down 

 and poured into the slatted boxes. The large fish are retained, while 

 some of the smallest pass through the openings. Shad, however, are so 

 extremely delicate that the slightest blow or shock will kill them, and 

 the baskets are sometimes filled with bushels of young shad not moi-e 

 than a few inches in length. 



It is useless to undertake to stock rivers with shad or herring in 

 w^hich this objectionable i)ractice is maintained. Fortunately, it is prac- 

 ticable only in waters shallow enough to i>ermit putting up the side walls 

 of stone ; but, unfortunately, the Susquehanna, which was at one time 

 one of the finest shad-streams in the United States, is particularly noted 

 for the establishment of fish-baskets, owing to the succession of shallow 

 Xdaces in the river traversed with rocky ledges, and having an ample 

 supidy of bowlders, furnishing material for the walls. It is qijite safe 

 to say that, more than anjthing else, it is to the presence of these fish- 

 baskets in large numbers that the decrease and approximate extermina- 

 tion of shad in the Susquehanna is due, and that no efforts on the part 

 of the States of Maryland and Virginia for the restoration of shad and 

 herring will be of any avail unless accompanied by most stringent meas- 

 ures for destroying these obstructions. 



Another very important subject, to which the attention of the proper 

 authorities should be called, is the enormous drain upon the jjossible 

 increase of the stripetl bass or rock- fish by the sale of the young in the 

 markets. This fish, of which individuals weighing fifty to seventy pounds 

 liave formerly been seen in the market of Wasldngton, is now rapidly 

 being leduced in luimbcr and size, and by no cause, probably, so much 

 as by the capture and sale of fish from six to twelve inches in length. 

 It is more than i)robable that, if undisturbed, more than half the fish of 

 this size would reach a weight of twenty pounds or more ; and no more 

 judicious measure couhl be enacted than that of imposing a heavy penalty 

 upon any dealer for having in his poissession, or olfering for sale, striped 

 bass of less than fifteen inches in length, or weighing less than from one 

 to two pounds. Of course the capture by individuals of fish below Ihe 



