926 EEPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



have been lioping to see the fishway completed." Another gentleman 

 writes : " Brunswick, July 6, 1878. I have the pleasure of informing 

 you that a fine large salmon has been the admiration of many of our 

 citizens, playing around above the falls near the short bridge. He was 

 so tame that some one undertook to catch him by a spear or hook, and 

 by that means wounded him, so that he was this morning found dead. 

 Of course no one knows who did it, but it was learned with manifold re- 

 gret though his existence establishes the fact that we have young 

 salmon in our river. Now, if we had good fishways in good condi- 

 tion on our falls, there is no doubt but that we would have a plenty of 

 these beautiful fish in our river." Still another, under date of July, 

 1878, says : " Can anything be done by us to enable you to have our 

 fishways made more practicable 1 " 



On the Medomac, " large salmon have been seen jumping in the basin, 

 above the dam, where such a sight has not been witnessed before for 

 forty years." (Twelfth report of the commissioners of fisheries of the 

 State of Maine, for the year 1878, p. 8-9.) 



Alewives. — We transported seventy alewives in cans from Bucksport 

 to Enfield, part way by wagon and the rest by railroad, on the 17th of 

 May. The 10th of September the first school of young fry were seen on 

 their way down to the Penobscot ; two other schools followed at inter- 

 vals of a few days. These fish, it is estimated, will make their first 

 return from the ocean in two years. (Twelfth report of the commis- 

 sioners of fisheries of the State of Maine, 1878, p. 17.) 



We quote from several of their recent reports, as follows : 



Maine says : " The salmon fisheries of the State have been largely 

 productive, tliat of the Penobscot being reported as greater than for the 

 last twenty-five years. The take of alewives in those parts of the State 

 where fivshways have been x^rovided and the fish protected was likewise 

 very large and remunerative. The most gratifying feature of this year's 

 experience is the wide interest awakened in the State in fish culture 

 among all classes, as evidenced in the extensive demand for brook- 

 trout, land-locked salmon, and black bass to stock waters for j)rivate 

 enterprises, as well as for towns and counties. The black bass we apply 

 in all cases as an antidote to the worthless pickerel. It costs more to 

 feed a pickerel than any other fish ; it costs more to make a pound of 

 i:)ickerel than a pound of any other fish ; the pickerel consumes every- 

 thing that swims or that it can swallow j it is very destructive to young 

 water-fowl. 



" For the last four or five years large numbers of young salmon have 

 made their appearance in the Penobscot Eiver below Bangor. Ev^en 

 the Kenduskeag Eiver, below Morse & Co.'s mill, has been full of them. 

 Large numbers have been taken this year below the dam of the Holly 

 Water- Works, at Treat's Falls, and in Barr's Brook, by both men and boys. 

 In dipping for smelts in Brewer, sixty young salmon were picked from 

 among the captured smelts in the course of two hours and returned to 



