178 THE OYSTER. 



and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that 

 moveth upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the 

 sea, while they are all delivered into his hands and are 

 powerless to resist him, he alone, of all animals, is able 

 to make good his ravages, by agriculture and by 

 domestication, by the selection and improvement of 

 animals and plants, and by artificial propagation. 



In the year 1880 the fisheries census, and special 

 investigations under the direction of the U. S. Fish 

 Commission, proved that there had been a most rapid 

 and alarming decline in the value of the shad fisheries 

 in the rivers and bays and sounds of our Atlantic 

 coast, and that there was every reason to fear that in 

 a few years the shad would cease to be of any value as 

 a food supply. 



The adult shad are oceanic fishes, but each spring 

 they enter our inlets and bays and make their way 

 up to the fresh-water streams where they deposit their 

 eggs. 



The supply for the market is caught during this 

 spring migration, when the fishes enter our inland 

 waters heavy and fat after their winter's feast upon the 

 abundant food which they find in the ocean. As they 

 spend most of the year gathering up and converting 

 into the substance of their own bodies the minute 

 marine organisms which would otherwise be of no 

 value to man, and as their instincts compel them to 

 bring back to our very doors this great addition to our 

 food supply, and thus put at our service a great and 

 fertile area of the ocean, which without their aid would 

 be beyond our control and of no value to man, their 

 economic importance is very great, and their extinction 

 would be a national calamity. 



