18 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP FISHERIES. 



and interested citizens of the State to take up this particular work 

 and is now being urged to assist in the preservation of the fishes of 

 that river, which are in danger of complete extermination through 

 the absence of protective laws. 



On the upper Mississippi River rescue operations are being con- 

 ducted by authority of permits issued by the several States bordering 

 thereon. The State of Michigan, which has not for years engaged in 

 the cultivation of commercial fishes, has enacted laws directly an- 

 tagonistic to the Bureau's work, although no other State has profited 

 more from the fish-cultural activities of the Government. The pres- 

 ent fish law, passed over the Bureau's protest and serving no useful 

 purpose so far as fish are concerned, not only stipulates that the 

 Government's operations shall be supervised by the State fish and 

 game warden's department, but that all eggs must be taken and 

 fertilized by fishermen licensed by that department, thus placing the 

 work in the hands of inexperienced men. It also prohibits the ship- 

 ment beyond the boundaries of that State of fish or eggs secured from 

 Michigan waters, but does not prohibit Michigan's reception of eggs 

 or fish from other States. Under these circumstances there has been 

 a steady decline in the output of the Bureau's Michigan stations. 



It is hardly necessary to refer again to the steady decline during 

 recent years in the shad fisheries of the Potomac and Susquehanna 

 Rivers, due primarily to the failure of Virginia and Maryland to 

 enact laws to insure the ascent of fish to their spawning grounds. 

 At the present time the Bureau is laboring under gi-eat difficulties 

 in its efforts to increase the supply of shad in the Chesapeake region, 

 and until it can secure the cooperation of the responsible States 

 through the enactment and enforcement of adequate fishery laws, 

 the wisdom of further expenditure of time and money in this direc- 

 tion is seriously doubted. 



Recently the chairman of a State board of fish and game commis- 

 sioners requested the Bureau to discontinue operations in one of the 

 lakes of the State on complaint of a summer-hotel keeper who, with- 

 out any knowledge of the methods employed in artificial propagation 

 or the benefits resulting therefrom and actuated by selfish motives, 

 reached the conclusion that the work of the Bureau was detrimental 

 to the fishing interests in the immediate vicinity of the lake re- 

 ferred to. 



BIOLOGICAL INQUIRIES AND EXPERIMENTS. 



OYSTER INVESTIGATIONS AND SURVEYS. 



Delaware. — At the beginning of the fiscal year there was in progress 

 a survey of the natural oyster beds of Delaware, undertaken at the 

 request of the governor of Delaware acting in his capacity as chair- 



