30 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES, 
the desire of the Bureau to secure adequate funds for increasing this 
work throughout the Mississippi Valley, as the present operations 
are wholly incommensurate with the field to be covered. Buffalo- 
fishes, carp, and catfishes, the mainstay of the commercial fisheries 
there, are noticeably decreasing, although sufficient young of these 
aporive are each year perishing on the overflowed lands to maintain 
the present fisheries and increase the future supply if proper measures 
for their salvage are taken. 
ACCLIMATIZATION. 
The transfer of humpback-salmon eggs from the Pacific coast to 
the Maine hatcheries was repeated in the fall of 1915, and in the 
spring of 1916 the third plant of the species was made in the waters 
of that State, which were at one time replete with the Atlantic 
salmon. The young available for distribution, numbering 6,225,808 
and ranging from 24 to 6 inches in length, were deposited in pre- 
viously selected streams under very favorable conditions. 
The success of this interesting experiment in acclimatization seems 
assured. There was a remarkable return of mature fish in the 
summer and fall of 1915, the outcome of plants made in the spring of 
1914. Many fish weighing over 5 Be were taken or seen in the 
Penobscot River, and 20 were captured alive by agents of the Bureau 
near Bangor and held in an effort to obtain ripe eggs. From two of 
these fish 3,000 eggs were taken on September 6 and, after fertiliza- 
tion, sent to Craig Brook, where incubation was completed with 
normal results. Accounts of the appearance of this new fish in 
various minor rivers have come in, and in the Dennys River there 
was a noteworthy run which began as early as August 15 and con- 
tinued as late as September 24. The local fishermen caught and ate 
large numbers, and during the week of September 20 an employee 
of the Green Lake hatchery took 15 fish (8 males and 7 females) 
which had passed through the fishways in dams in Dennys River and 
were dropping downstream in a spent condition. At the same time 
both live and dead fish were observed below the dams. 
Another carload Jot of Atlantic lobsters from Maine was sent to 
the Pacific coast on November 15, 1915. The shipment, consisting 
of 5,423 adults about equally apportioned as to sex, reached its 
destination on November 20 in much better condition than any 
revious lot. At the railroad terminus (Anacortes, Wash.) the 
obsters were placed in four floating live cars that had been prepared 
for them, and there allowed to feed and to recuperate overnight. 
The foliowing morning they were towed in the crates to the San Juan 
Islands, in Puget Sound, and liberated in Bellingham Channel, off 
Guemes Island. The number of strong, healthy lobsters planted was 
3,325, or over 61 per cent of the original consignment. 
During the fall of 1915 a shipment of large crabs from Puget Sound 
to the New England coast was made. Owing partly to a wreck and 
partly to difficulties in handling, only a small number survived the 
journey: These were liberated in good condition off the coast of- 
aine. 
Limited consignments of fish, lobsters, and fish eggs to foreign coun- 
tries-and insular possessions were made during the year. Fift 
thousand rainbow-trout eggs were’ sent to Portugal, 200 adult 
