LIV REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



also participated during two or three seasons in the shad operations on 

 the Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers. He assisted in preparing and 

 installing the exhibits of the Fish Commission and National Museum 

 at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and in 1883 had 

 charge of packing the large collections sent by the Fish Commission to 

 the London Fisheries Exhibition and their subsequent installation. In 

 1885 he was made the lirst superintendent of the Wood's Holl Station, 

 which was then permanently organized, and continued to fill this posi- 

 tion until June of this year, when his final illness unfitted him for act- 

 ive service. Captain Chester was a member of the party which con- 

 ducted the experimental work of cod hatching at Gloucester, Mass., 

 during the winter of 1878-79, when by unwise exposure he contracted 

 a serious lung trouble, from which he never fully recovered. He also 

 took part in the subsequent experiments of the same nature at Wood's 

 Holl, and during the winter of 1885-'86 was in charge of the work. 

 The Commission is indebted to him for important improvements in the 

 methods of hatching cod and lobster eggs and in the dredging appli- 

 ances. 



Notice of Capt. Nathaniel E. Atwood. — It is very appropriate that men- 

 tion should be made in this connection of the important services ren- 

 dered to science and to the fishery industries of New England by Capt. 

 N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, Mass., who died November 7, 1886, in 

 his eightieth year. His warm devotion to the interests of the Fish Com- 

 mission, and his frequent contributions to its fund of information, made 

 him an honored associate in its work, and his loss will be deeply felt by 

 those who enjoyed his friendship. Starting life as a fisherman in 1816, 

 when only nine years of age, he continued actively in this vocation for 

 half a century, at the end of which time he turned his attention to the 

 curing of fish in his native town. In 1857 he was elected to the State 

 house of representatives, and subsequently to the State senate, in which 

 he served as a member of the committee on fisheries. Captain Atwood 

 was an accurate observer of natural phenomena, and possessed a won- 

 derfully retentive memory, lacking only the necessary training to fit him 

 as an accomplished naturalist. He gave valuable assistance to Dr. D. 

 Humphreys Storer in the preparation of his monograph on the fishes of 

 Massachusetts, begun in 1843, and was afterwards a constant helper of 

 Prof. Louis Agassiz in his ichthyological studies. The Fish Commis- 

 sion is indebted to Captain Atwood for most of its information respect- 

 ing the history of the important fisheries of Cape Cod, and in many 

 other directions it has had the benefit of his varied experiences. 



13. — PUBLICATIONS BY THE FISH COMMISSION DURING 1886. 



Annual Reports. — The annual report of the Commissioner for 1883, 

 of which only the press-work and binding remained to be done Janu- 

 ary 1, was not received from the Printing Office until August 11. 

 Most of the report for 1S84 was also in type at the beginning of the 



