THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 51 



the hitter; ill the height of the season a single shad weighing from G to 

 8 pounds is sold in the market of the District for G cents. Herrings, 

 however, are sometimes taken so plentifully that they are gi<ven away 

 or hauled on the land as manure for want of purchasers." Some idea 

 may be formed of the importance of these fisheries from the following 

 statement : 



Number of fisheries on the Potomac, about 150 



Number of laborers required at the landings 6,500 



Number of vessels employed 450 



Number of men to uavigate these vessels 1, 350 



Number of shad taken in good season, which lasts only about six weeks. 22, 500, 000 



Number of herrings under similar circumstances 750,000,000 



Quantity of salt required to cure the fish bushels.. 905, 000 



Number of barrels to contain the fish 995, 000 



In further illustration of the former extent of the fresh-water fisheries 

 of the Potomac Eiver, I give an extract from X3uruaby's Travels in 

 North America, referring more particularly to the sturgeon, although 

 incidentally to the shad and herring.* At the present day the yield of 

 these fisheries has decreased enormously, although enough are left to 

 encourage the hope of a great improvement whenever the proper means 

 for protection and the artificial propagation of fish are entered upon. 



In the year 1873 the shad, herring, and bunch fish caught in the Po- 

 tomac and sold in the Washington market amounted to 8,541,851 

 pounds ; in 1874 the total sales at Alexandria, Washington, and George- 

 town, from the same river, amounted to about 1G,122,533 pounds, a by 

 no means indifferent presentation. 



(2) Catadromous fish. — Species of fish which are born in the sea, 

 ascend the rivers and reach their maturity in two to four years, and 

 then, when mature, descend to the ocean to spawn, and possibly never 

 leave it again. 



The Eel is the only species to which we can at present assign this 

 peculiar habit. 



(3) Inshore fishes, more especially fishes found inshore during the 

 summer season, coming in apparently to breed. They are more or 

 less closely related to the bottom, seldom or never schooling at the 



*Iu the first report of the II. S. Fish Commission I have given numerous quo- 

 tations from early authors in reference to the abundance of various fishes in the 

 rivers and along the coast of the United States. Burnaby (Travels through the 

 middle settlements of North America iu the years 1759 aud 1760, London, 1775), in 

 speaking of the Potomac River, remarks as follows (on page 9) : "These waters are 

 stored with incredible quantities offish, such as sheepsheads, rock-iish, drums, white- 

 pearch, herrings, oysters, crabs, aud several other sorts. Sturgeon and shad are in 

 such prodigious numbers that one day, within the space of two (2) miles only, some 

 gentlemen in canoes caught above 600 of the former with hooks which they let down 

 to the bottom and drew up at a venture when they perceived them to rub against a 

 fish ; and of the latter, above 5,000 have been caught at one single haul of the seine." 

 It is probable that the seines used in the Potomac waters over a hundred years ago 

 were much smaller than those now employed, one of one hundred yards being, doubt- 

 less, of remarkable magnitude, 



