4* REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



coast inquiry, the subject of the invertebrate marine animals has been 

 in charge of Prof. A. E. Verrill, with assistants varying in different 

 years; that of the vertebrates, in charge of Mr. G. Brown Gootle ; Mr. 

 J. W. Milner, assistant fish commissioner, while rendering aid in the 

 general details of the fish-producing department, has entire charge of 

 everything connected with the hatching and distribution of the shad, 

 as has Mr. Charles G. Atkins of the Sea- and Landlocked salmon estab- 

 lishments in Maine, and Mr. Livingston Stone of the salmon-fishing sta- 

 tion ontheMcCloud Eiver. To all of these gentlemen I am happy thus 

 to render a public acknowledgment for hearty and efficient service. 



To Mr. T. B. Ferguson, the very able commissioner of Fisheries of the 

 State of ]Marylaud, I am indebted for most important co-operation in the 

 hatching of shad and salmon for distribution throughout the country, his 

 machinery and hatching establishment having been freely at my com- 

 mand, and his men employed at various times in the transportation of the 

 latter fish. The aid of other State Fish commissioners will be referred to 

 hereafter. 



The difficulty of confining the annual report of operations to the 

 cardinal year has been already explained, the shad-hatching work for a 

 given season alone commencing and finishing between January and 

 December. The other branches have usually been considered in each 

 report from their commencement to their close, which consequently 

 involves the carrying of certain topics into the following year. The last 

 published report of the Commission, or the third, embraced the seasons 

 of 1873-74 and 1874-75; the present one (or the fourth) will be less 

 extensive, but while bringing the history of a certain portion of the 

 operations up to the beginning of 1877, will also include some matters 

 that should have appeared in a preceding volume but which was not 

 furnished in time by the authors. The history of the operations of the 

 Commission, therefore, in the present volume will, as usual, be given 

 under the two heads of the Inquiry into the Sea and Lake Fisheries, 

 and the Propagation of Food-Fishes — the former covering the whole 

 of the years 1875 and 1876; the latter, 187G and the early part of 1877. 



B— INQUIRY INTO THE DECREASE OF FOOD-FISHES. 

 2. — INVESTIGATIONS IN AND OPERATIONS OF 1875. 



The successive centers from which investigations into the subject re- 

 ferred to were prosecuted have already been mentioned as being at 

 Wood's HoU, Eastport, Portland, and Noank. Wood's Holl was again 

 selected as a station in 1875, as the interval of four years which had 

 elapsed since the commencement of the work at the same place rendered 

 it probable that a second visit at this time would give the means for 

 determining the amount of variation in the fish-supply. An additional 

 object in taking this station was its convenience in securing material for 

 the fisheries display of the International Exhibition at Philadelphia in 



