SHAD PROPAGATION AND DISTRIBUTION IN 1878. 615 



haul 400,000. The northern shore of the sound and the Ohowan Eiver 

 seemed to be in the direct course of the fish ; later they struck the net 

 at Avoca Beach ; the best haul made at this i)oint was 105,000. Scotch 

 Hall, about three miles nearer the mouth of the Koanoke Eiver, did not 

 seem to be in the range of the fish ; they ascended the Roanoke in much 

 more moderate numbers, though all that the fishermen desired and 

 more could be taken. The herring crowded the waters of the sound to 

 such an extent that they seemed to drive the shad and other fishes 

 away, and the catch of shad became even smaller than it had been. 

 The steamers from Franklin came daily freighted with salt and went 

 back loaded heavily with salted herring; the prices dropped very 

 rapidly until they were offered in some instances at 50 cents a thousand 

 at the beach. The women employed to dress the salted herring worked 

 night and day, and a large increase of the force was made at most fish- 

 eries. It was impossible in these immense hauls to take care of all of the 

 fish, and frequently a large surplus was carted away from the beach to 

 spread on the fields as manure. 



No satisfactory theory suggests itself for this immense increase in the 

 herring. The seines stopped fishing eight or ten days earlier than usual 

 because of this immense influx of herring, as the prices became lower 

 for every additional hundred thousand salted. 



A change in the run of the shoals of fish at different points, from 

 year to year, is observed here as it is in many other places and with 

 other species of fish. It is impossible to say whether this is owing to an 

 alteration in the contours of the bottom from the heavy storms, or to a 

 change in the distribution of the food of the fishes, or to a question of 

 temperature, but it is a fact that certain shores, which in a series of 

 years have gained notoriety for great yields of fish, subsequently di- 

 minish in value, and other stations supplant them in this respect. 



The facilities for hatching fish which were at our command were, first, 

 the apparatus first used in the season of 1877, namely, a barge, on the 

 outside of which levers protruded from air-ports ; from the bows were 

 suspended buckets, an up-and-down movement being afforded these by 

 means of eccentrics, which from their irregular form, with one long side 

 and one short side, produced a sudden drop and a slow rise; this appa- 

 ratus is the well-kuown invention of Major Ferguson. Cones were ar- 

 ranged along the sides of the housing which covered the scow; two 

 large casks were raised on a platform to an elevation higher than the 

 top of the cones, and were filled by a pump run by the same engine 

 which propelled the shafting. An improvement was made on the cones 

 at the suggestion of Mr. F. N. Clark, wliich obviated the continual at- 

 tention required in skimming off' foul matter, shells of eggs, and the 

 like, which continually clogged the perforations in the inner rim, and 

 produced an overflow of eggs and fishes from the cones. By means 

 of Mr. Clark's contrivance the specific gravity of sound eggs, at a 

 properly regulated pressure, caused them to remain some distance be- 



