REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 33 



i 



land their fares and transship them in scows or other shallow boats 

 to Biloxi. In this manner the red-snapper fishery might be estab- 

 lished and successfully prosecuted. 



MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES. 

 RELATIONS WITH OTHER GOVERNMENT BUREAUS. 



During the year the Bureau has cooperated with other branches of 

 the Government, both giving and receiving assistance in the interests 

 of an economical and efficient administration of the public business. 

 The assistance rendered to the Bureau of the Census in the statistical 

 canvass of the fisheries in the preceding fiscal year was supplemented 

 by the detail of an agent of the Bureau to aid in certain technical 

 matters connected with the compilation of the data. This assistance 

 consisted principally in the identification and consideration of the 

 involved and often dubious nomenclature of the fishes exhibited in 

 the field schedules. 



A large number of samples of fishery products have been identified 

 and passed on at the request of the food and drug board of the 

 Department of Agriculture, and other assistance has been rendered 

 in connection with the functions of that board. 



In March, 1910, on request of the Secretary of War preferred 

 through the Department, an examination and appraisal was made 

 of certain oyster bottoms adjoining the military reservation at Fort 

 Monroe, Va., recently ceded by the State of Virginia to the Federal 

 Government. A full report, accompanied by tracings, was trans- 

 mitted to the War Department. 



The Bureau expresses its appreciation of the services of the Bureau 

 of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture for analyses of water 

 from various hatcheries and to the Coast and Geodetic Survey for 

 various charts and projections and for other courtesies extended. 



INTERNATIONAL FISHERY MATTERS. 



In 1909, as in the four previous years, at the request of the Depart- 

 ment of State, the Bureau detailed a representative to visit New- 

 foundland for the purpose of observing the operations of American 

 fishing vessels engaged in the herring fisheries there under the pro- 

 visions of the modus vivendi. The detail extended from October, 

 1909. to January, 1910. No vessel was assigned to the work this year. 

 In June, 1910, two representatives from the Bureau's official staff were 

 detailed to The Hague to assist the American counsel in the case be- 

 fore that tribunal for a settlement of the dispute as to the rights of 

 our fishermen in Newfoundland and Canadian waters under the 

 treaty of 1818. 



The Bureau continued its cooperation with the State Department, 

 through the International Fisheries Commission, in securing basic 



