EEPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHEEIES. *29 



legal liuiit could not be prevented, nor would it make much difference 

 iu tlie result. It is to the wholesale gathering- in, l)y pounds and seines, 

 of these young fish by the ton, that the decrease iu their number is 

 especially to be ascribed. 



13. — WORK ACC03MPLISHED IN 1877. 

 The Shad. 



Station on the Susquehanna River. — Eeference has been made in pre- 

 vious reports to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of shad 

 iu the Southern waters of the United States to warrant the labor and 

 expense of occupying them, the depletion of most of the streams having 

 been carried to such an extent as to make it almost impossible to find 

 enough spawning shad to commence the work of restoration. 



Accordingly, in arranging the plans for 1877, it was determined to 

 concentrate efforts upon the Susquehanna and Connecticut Elvers, in 

 the hoi)e of securing the needed material for the purpose. Another ob- 

 ject in this selection of stations was to test, at one of them at least, the 

 efficiency of the new method of Mr. T. B. Ferguson, fish commissioner of 

 Maryland, constituting a radical change in the mode of hatching shad, 

 and overcoming many difficulties attending the use of both the Green 

 and the Brackett hatching-boxes. These, as already explained iu pre- 

 vious rei)orts, consist of boxes with wire-gauze bottoms of about one and 

 a half square feet area, fastened in gangs to jiosts in a running stream. 

 The eggs placed in these boxes receive the infiuencc of the ever-chang- 

 ing ciu-reut and are hatched out. The young fish also are kept in the 

 boxes until the time for transportation arrives, generally within twenty- 

 four hours after birth. 



The protection of the eggs from their enemies is one of the chief fac- 

 tors in this form of apparatus. Many practicol difficulties, however, 

 have occurred iu the use of these ])oxcs. In streams where the spawn- 

 ing shad can be obtained at some distance above the mouth where there 

 is a constant current, as in the Hudson and Connecticut, some of the 

 2)rincipal difficulties are avoided, and the work can be prosecuted for 

 the most part with comparativelj" little failure. Even here, however, 

 the difficulty of reaching the boxes to give proper attention to the eggs 

 and young fish, the danger arising from sudden freshets, from tloating 

 lumber, logs, «&c., is very great, and there is usually a, very considerable 

 percentage of loss arising from casualties. The difficulties become very 

 much greater, however, Avhen the work is carried on in tidal waters 

 where the current is mainly derived from the flow of the tide, which 

 changes its direction twice a day, with a period of calm between. Even 

 a gentle wind blowing against the tide will also neutralize the current 

 and endanger the result. The boxes, which at one tide are floated in a 

 given direction with the change, are brought round so as to float iu an 

 opposite one. In changing, they frequently become entangiedi, espe- 

 cially in stormy weather, and are upset and the contents spilled out — a 

 result likely to happen at any time with a sudden blow and the conse- 



