REPORT. OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. OT 
where they would perish from drought, or from cold later in the 
ear, if allowed to remain. Of the total number of fish collected, 
fully 90 per cent are returned to the rivers where they originated. 
ACCLIMATIZATION. 
In continuance of the efforts to establish the Atlantic lobster on 
the Pacific coast, a shipment consisting of 6,000 adult lobsters— 
3,100 females and 2,900 males—was forwarded in a refrigerator car 
on November 16 from Boothbay Harbor, Me., to Anacortes, Wash. 
The lobsters were packed in crates, as heretofore, between layers of 
rockweed, and while en route were daily sprinkled with salt water, 
an even temperature of 40° F. being maintained during the entire 
trip. Through an error of the express company in routing the car, 
the trip was made 250 miles longer than necessary and a delay of 24 
hours in delivery resulted. On the arrival of the car at Anacortes 
the loss en route was ascertained to have been 1,051 female and 1,845 
male lobsters. Owing to the weak condition of a portion of the sur- 
vivors 865 females and 739 males were planted in suitable places in 
the harbor off Anacortes, and the remainder of the consignment was 
transferred to live cars anchored in Puget; Sound and allowed 24 
hours in which to recuperate. The following day, after delivering 
100 at Anacortes, for shipment to Japan, the lobsters were towed to 
Deer Harbor, in the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, and liberated 
in good condition. 
In November, 1914, a third consignment of 7,000,000 eyed hump- 
back salmon eggs was forwarded from Puget Sound to New England 
and divided equally between the Craig Brook and Green Lake hatch: 
eries. The fry resulting from them, 4,964,757 in all, were distrib- 
uted in various tributaries of the Penobscot River and other selected 
streams. 
BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS, SURVEYS, ETC. 
PROBLEMS OF THE OYSTER INDUSTRY. 
Of all American food products derived from the water, the oyster 
merits first consideration. In nutritive qualities it is surpassed by 
none; in the total value of the product marketed and consumed the 
oyster ranks first; no fishery resource is more widely distributed on 
the seacoast; and none lends itself to artificial cultivation so readily 
as the oyster. In certain regions oyster growing has reached a very 
high degree of development, and it may be cited as the only fish- 
cultural industry which has been largely developed through private 
enterprise. Nevertheless, the industry is yet quite too restricted in 
comparison with the wide distribution of the oyster, and with the 
extent of the barren bottoms that could be made productive through 
human efforts. 
The natural development of commercial oyster culture is seriously 
hampered both by peculiar conditions of an economic nature, and by 
the failure to apply scientific methods in an adequate way to many 
of the elementary problems involved. The Bureau has endeavored 
at all times render all practicable aid to this important industry 
and to awaken a merited interest in the subject on the part of the 
eg of State officials, and of all persons engaged in the industry. 
