REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 41 
tended into the next fiscal year before it can reach a stage of com- 
pletion. 
Each important vessel, where engaged in other primary investiga- 
tions, has taken advantage of the opportunities for recording hydro- 
graphic observations as far as consistent with the economical prose- 
cution of its immediate objects. Thus data of some value have been 
reported by the steamer Albatross while pursuing special studies of 
the western coast and by the steamer /%ish Hawk while working off the 
coast of North Carolina. 
STUDIES OF ANADROMOUS FISHES. 
Among the most highly esteemed of our food fishes are those that 
spend the greater part of their lives in the ocean, but at one stage 
enter the rivers for the purpose of reproduction. Such are the 
salmons, the striped bass, the shad, and the sturgeons. Crowding a& 
they do at one particular season into certain restricted channels, 
namely, the river courses of our coastal slopes, they become the more 
readily an easy prey to man’s pursuit. Unless the greatest foresight 
and restraint are exercised in the fishery, and the methods of arti- 
ficial propagation are resorted to, such fishes are certainly doomed to 
rapid diminution, if not complete disappearance. The absolute 
abundance of anadromous fishes is too easily overestimated. Take 
all the shad which even in past times entered our rivers and strew 
them widely over both land and water of the coastal plain, and their 
‘‘abundance” would be lost to view; or, as may indeed be done in 
nature, scatter them over the continental slope beneath the ocean waters 
and they become one of the rarer fishes of the sea. There is little 
reason to wonder that a shad is so seldom taken in the ocean fishery 
followed off the greater portion of our coast. It would have to be an 
extraordinary condition, such as abundant food, perhaps, that would 
bring shad together in a particular region of the sea, that would per- 
mit an ocean fishery for shad to be carried on. Such, indeed, appears 
to be the case of certain regions off the northeastern coast where 
‘‘sea-run shad” become a feature of the local markets. What is the 
origin of such shad? Are they a distinct race, or are these the shad 
that were bred in southern rivers? The extent and directions of 
migration of the fish are questions of vital interest. To what extent 
are the runs of one river affected by fishing operations in another ? 
In what degree does artificial propagation in one stream yield*returns 
of value to another? These are all kindred questions or aspects of 
one general problem for each anadromous species. 
Notwithstanding the attention which has been devoted to the 
shad during so many years, the paucity of explicit knowledge is 
keenly felt. Early in the fiscal year the Bureau instituted a com- 
prehensive investigation of the shad, hoping that the application of 
newer methods of investigation May afford the key by which the 
mysteries may be unlocked. Beginning with the St. Johns River 
in Florida in January, the investigator has worked up the coast, 
visiting the principal shad streams as nearly as possible at the time 
when the fish are arriving from the sea. By the close of the fiscal 
ear he had reached New England, where studies were being made 
Pan of the native shad of Maine and the sea shad of the waters 
north of Cape Cod. Many questions have received attention, 
