CLXXXVIII REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



office force was the preparation for publication of the material illus- 

 trative of the alligator industry of Florida, for which the Census Office 

 had aijproximately complete returns. 



The i^ersonal services of the special agent in charge, aside from gen- 

 eral supervision of the office afl'airs, chiefly consisted of work on the 

 bulletins elsewhere mentioned. The proof of the first of these was 

 revised, the manuscript of the second was in part prepared, and the 

 introduction of the third was written and the tables in the same revised. 

 Two visits to Boston, occupying seventeen days, were made in con- 

 nection with this work. 



On November 30, 1891, the force in the fisheries division was prac- 

 tically disbanded, owing to financial considerations. It was antici- 

 pated, however, that work would be resumed with an adequate force 

 about the 1st of March. 



In a report on the census work which the writer made to his superior 

 officer in the Fish Commission on December 19, 1891, the following 

 statement occurs, which discloses the principal consideration which 

 necessitated the severance of active relations between the two bureaus 

 which took place in the next month: 



From the experience I have already had with the fishery census, I am led to 

 believe that, should the work resume with the necessary force, nearly if not quite all 

 my time will be required to properly direct and carry on the business of the office. 

 I feel that if the responsibility of making a creditable statistical and descriptive 

 presentation of the fisheries of the United States is to fall on me, I should have 

 unlimited time at my disposal, and should not be handicapped by having to divide 

 my time and energy between two dift'erent departments. There is a great amount 

 of work remaining to be done, and, however much of this I may be able to 

 detail to subordinates, personal attention will have to be given to the important 

 subjects of preparing the descriptive and tabular matter for the bulletins and the final 

 volume, and to correspondence. I make this statement so that the conditions under 

 which the work will be resumed may be clearly understood by you at the outset. 



The following bulletins of the Census Office relating to fish and fish- 

 eries were issued during the connection of the writer with that bureau 

 in the capacity of special agent in charge. One of these was based 

 wholly on Fish Commission material, and in the preparation of the 

 others recourse was had to Fish Commission records for the verifica- 

 tion and emendation of the census returns. 



Bulletin N'o. 123. Marine Mammalia: In the introduction to this 

 bulletin, the Superintendent of the Census refers to this office in the 

 following words: 



It is with pleasure that the assistance rendered by the U. S. Commission of Fish 

 and Fisheries is gratefully acknowledged. The statistical resources of that depart- 

 ment have been placed freely at the disposal of the Census Office for the purposes of 

 comparison and verification, and the accuracy and completeness of this bulletin are 

 largely due to the oi)portunitie8 thus afforded. 



The authors also make this reference to the Fish Commission : 



The most complete and reliable comparative statistics are naturally furnished by 

 the U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, which has a permanent body of expe- 

 rienced agents engaged in the work, and whoso cordial cooperation with the Census 

 Office 'vrork has been acknowledged. 



