1018 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



to Connecticut. Manj^ of the rivers have been depopulated by reckless 

 fishing, and did not afterward regain their stocks of shad, a sure proof 

 that this fish, like other migratory fish, always returns for spawning to 

 the place where it was born. These depopulated rivers had therefore 

 to be stocked again. 



As a proof of the gradual depopulation of the rivers by reckless 

 fishing, Professor Baird mentions that at present from six to ten million 

 pounds of shad and herring are every year caught in the Potomac, 

 while in 1835 630,000,000 pounds of these fish were caught during the 

 six weeks of the fishing-season. He says: "Who can doubt that the 

 ocean is as well able to-day as it was then to send such quantities of 

 fish into the Potomac, and in proportion into all the rivers in the neigh- 

 borhood?" and concludes his report with a statistical table, according to 

 which his commission has during the last three years distributed 

 40,000,000 of impregnated fish-eggs and young fish. 



Gentlemen, these are proud figures; but we would be very much mis- 

 taken if we thought that this was all the result obtained in America. 

 Allow me to anticipate ray report. The small State of Connecticut, 

 about the size of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, has alone of shad placed one 

 hundred million in the proud river whose name it bears. 



I will in this connection say something regarding the shad, of whose 

 cultivation the Americans are justly proud. This fish belongs tQ the 

 herring family {Clupeidce), the most prolific of all the migratory fish. As 

 soon as the temperature rises in spring, these fish leave their incompar- 

 able pasture- grounds in the Gulf Stream in order to spawn in the rivers 

 during the mouths of May and June. After three to five days the little 

 fish leave the eggs; and as they have scarcely any umbilical bag, they 

 can immediately, from the very ingenious hatching-boxes invented by 

 Seth Green, be transferred to the rivers. How easy does this process 

 seem if compared with the raising of the salmonoids which require the 

 care of the pisciculturist for three and four months. The shad is, be- 

 sides, a very excellent fish, highly prized tor the table of the wealthy, 

 but also within reach of the poorer classes, as, tbanks to the efibrts of 

 pisciculturists, its price has fallen again. The only objection to it is 

 this, thac its fishing-season only lasts about two mouths, because imme- 

 diately after spawning it returns to the ocean. Recently, however, the 

 efibrts to domesticate it in Lake Ontario seem to have proved success- 

 ful, and it might there be caught all the year round. I shall return to 

 the shad. 



Besides the central commission, a piscicultural association has been 

 formed, with Mr. Robert Roosevelt as president, to whom we are like- 

 wise under many obligations. This association does not disburse any 

 money for fish propagation, but merely gathers together the commis- 

 sioners of the individual Stat^, in New York,* for the purpose of ex- 



* Tbe meetings of the Aoierican Fish Culturists' Association assemble all who are 

 generally or specially interested in these subjects and desire to become members, and 

 are not for commissioners only. — Ed. 



