92 American Fisheries Society 



the state, asked for its retention in the new law, which was 

 granted. The codification committee, its work well per- 

 formed, presented a printed report to the conservation com- 

 mission now having charge of the fish and game matters of 

 the state. When this report was presented by the commis- 

 sion to the legislature for the purpose of legislative enact- 

 ment it was discovered that politics, which has been so ably 

 defined by a former president of the society, as a disease, 

 had had its day in court, and that the cold-storage men, fish 

 dealers, and their friends had gotten under the armor of the 

 system of protection of the whitefish by the way of the size 

 limit, for this bill displaced the former regulation and 

 adopted a new method of measurement by making a mini- 

 mum size limit of 12 inches, with no close season for white- 

 fish for Lakes Erie or Ontario. This is the present regula- 

 tion, and we are to consider this method of ascertaining size 

 of maturity upon the precedent established that of a 12-inch 

 size. The changing of the manner of determining the size 

 of whitefish to be taken from a weight to a measure of length 

 is indefensible. As is well known the common method of 

 ascertaining size of the mature whitefish is a standard one 

 endorsed by the various heads of fish and game departments 

 of all states and provinces except as above stated. No state 

 or province, the United States Bureau of Fisheries, or the 

 fish culturists use any but a weight system of measurement, 

 and the only records of importance to be found where the 

 inch method has been used at all is in the handling of given 

 specimens for purposes of scientific study and identification 

 of species, none of which harmonize the 12-inch idea of 

 protection with that of two pounds in the round. Further, 

 in states and provinces outside of New York, which now 

 assist in supplying our demands for the fish, the fishermen 

 and the dealer is subjected to expense and inconvenience, 

 entirely unnecessary, and places upon fish and game depart- 

 ments, who ship fish out of their own jurisdictions, the re- 

 sponsibility of legislating and enforcing regulations in har- 



