732 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



With the cod the case is wholly different, for fish are plenty on the 

 Kew England coast during most of the year, and the spawning season 

 at Cape Ann lasts during eight or nine months. 



The supply of spawning-fish can be obtained with little difficulty by 

 a single crew, and brought to the harbor alive from any locality desired 

 by means of an ordinary market well-smack. 



These fish can be transferred to the live-cars convenient to the hatch- 

 ery, to remain until such time as they may ripen. Thus the live-cars can 

 be made a source of almost constant supply, and the hatching operations 

 can be vigorously pushed during fully half the year; while the number 

 of fish that can be hatched seems limited only by the capacity of the 

 hatchery, and hundreds of millions of eggs can easily be secured in a 

 single season. 



jThe young fry seem quite hardy, and can be kept confined a consid- 

 erable time and transported long distances with small loss; so that it 

 will be an easy matter to carry them to the more southern waters before 

 turning them loose in the sea. In this way it is thought that the 

 range of the commercial fisheries may be somewhat extended, and a 

 large class of people, both fishermen and consumers, greatly benefited. 

 When the subject is regarded from the above standpoint, it is clear that 

 the artificial propagation of the cod, as well as that of several other 

 species, will remove the possibility of the extermination of these spe- 

 cies from over-fishing; for the ovaries of 25 good-sized cod-fish, if all 

 the eggs were hatched, would furnish more fish in number than are 

 taken by the combined fleets of cod-fishermen from all the different 

 fishing-ports of the United States during the most prosperous season. 



Smithsonian Institution, February 1, 1880. 



E.— APPE^^DIX. 



Table I. — Shoicing the nuniber of eggs in cod-fisli of different sizes. 



*No. 1 (a) represents a secoBcl quantity taken from the same ovary tlie following day, and tlie greater 

 number may be partially accounted for 6y the evaporation of moisture during the night. 

 t No. 2 contained a few ripe eggs. ' 



