26 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
grounds near Plymouth to collect eggs from any ripe cod which 
might be taken by commercial fishermen, but severe weather and 
fogs so hampered their operations that most of the fishermen left 
the grounds at an early date; consequently the total receipts of eggs 
from that field amounted to 7,663,000. These, added to the eggs 
secured from brood fish held at the station, gave a total of 270,504,000, 
of which a consignment of 24,630,000 was transferred at the height 
of the collecting season to the Gloucester station. From the remain- 
ing 245,874,000 eggs, fry to the number of 168,012,000 were hatched 
and liberated in the coastal waters of Massachusetts. 
The first brood flounders were received at the station on January 
16, having been taken in fyke nets set in the immediate vicinity. A 
few days later captures of ripe fish were made at the field station at 
Waquoit Bay, and on February 26 collections were undertaken at 
Wickford, R. I. The fairly favorable weather conditions for the 
work during the late winter permitted the collection of 1,053,285,000 
eggs, or about 15 per cent more than that of the previous year. The 
average fertility of the stock was somewhat below the average, but 
this handicap was offset to a considerable extent by the uniformly 
suitable water temperatures prevailing during the hatching season, 
and the final outcome of the work with this species was the distribu- 
tion of 778,567,000 fry on the spawning grounds along the Massa- 
chusetts coast. 
At the close of the flounder work the station was fitted up for the | 
propagation of such summer-spawning fishes as might be secured 
from surrounding waters, and small quantities of mackerel and tautog 
eggs were taken and hatched. 
RESCUE OF FISHES FROM OVERFLOWED LANDS. 
One of the most important branches of the Bureau’s operations is 
the rescue of young food fishes from the lakes and bayous formed by 
the overflow of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and their tribu- 
taries. In the fiscal year 1915 operations of this character were con- 
ducted at the stations located on the upper Mississippi River at La 
Crosse, Wis., Bellevue and North McGregor, Iowa, and Homer, 
Minn.; on the Illinois River, at Meredosia, Ill., and on the lower 
Mississippi River at Friars Point, Miss. 
Favorable water stages made it possible to operate these stations 
from the receding of the floods in July until the latter part of Decem- 
ber. The total collections of all species of river fishes numbered 
approximately 8,357,000. Of this number 551,000 were delivered to 
applicants and deposited in public waters, the distributions involving 
34 carloads of fish, in addition to the deliveries made by detached 
messengers. Fishes of all species to the number of 7,806,000 were 
rescued from landlocked waters in the vicinity of the fields of oper- 
ation and returned to the main rivers. The output for the season 
is regarded as satisfactory, the distribution being three times as large - 
as last year. | 
As has been explained in previous reports, the many hundreds of 
thousands of young fishes resulting from the Bureau’s seining oper- 
ations along these rivers are taken from landlocked bayous and lakes 
