[5] THE STATUS OV THE FISH COMMISSION. 1143 



4. METHODS AND RESULTS OP THE COAST INVESTIGATION. 



Since the important sea fisheries are located along the North Atlantic, 

 the coast of this district has been the seat of the most active operations 

 in marine research. For twelve years the Commissioner, with a party 

 of specialists, has devoted the summer season to work at the shore, at 

 various stations along the coast, from North Carolina to Nova Scotia. 



A suitable place having been selected, a temporary laboratory is fitted 

 up with the necessary appliances for collection and study. In this are 

 placed from ten to twenty tables, each occupied by an investigator, 

 either an officer of the Commission or a volunteer. 



The regular routine of operations at a summer station includes all the 

 various forms of activity known to naturalists — collecting along the 

 shore, seining upon the beaches, setting traps for animals not otherwise 

 to be obtained, and scraping with dredge and trawl the bottom of the 

 sea, at depths as great as can be reached by a steamer in a trip of a few 

 days. In the laboratory are carried on the usual structural and syste- 

 matic studies ; the preparation of museum specimens and of reports. 



In addition to what has been done at the summer station, more or less 

 exhaustive investigations have been carried on by smaller parties in 

 every important position of the coast and interior waters. 



For several years steamers were lent for the work for a greater or less 

 period of time by the Coast Survey and the Eevenue Marine services, 

 and in and subsequent to 1873 by the Navy Department. 



In 1880, however, a steamer of 450 tons, the Fish Hawk, was built for 

 the fish-hatching purposes of the Commission. Another larger steamer, 

 of 1,000 tons, the Albatross, was built and put into commission in 

 1883 for special service in connection with the sea fisheries. 



Through the courtesy of the Secretary of the Navy and in direct com- 

 pliance with the law of Congress, naval ofBcers have been detailed to 

 attend to the technical details of the deep-sea work — a course mutually 

 beneficial to the two services, since the appropriation of the Fish Com- 

 mission is thereby husbanded, and an efiBcient staff of navigators is in- 

 sured, while active employment and training in scientific methods of 

 work is provided for several naval officials. 



One of the important features of the work done by the Commission 

 has been the preparation of life histories of the principal fishes, great 

 quantities of material having been accumulated relating to almost every 

 species. A portion of this has been published, biographical monographs 

 having been published on the bluefish, the scup, the menhaden, the 

 salmon, the whitefish, the shad, the mackerel, the swordlish; and the 

 others will make up the first volume of the forthcoming illustrated 

 special report upon the fisheries and fishery industries (jf the United 

 States, now in the hands of the Public Printer. 



In connection with the work of fish culture much attention has been 

 pui<l to embryology. T!ie breeding times and habits of nearly all of our 



