Ward. — Preservation of Fish Fauna 163 



sissippi should be intrusted the duty of preserving the 

 rich and varied fish fauna of the bayous and the brackish 

 waters bordering on the Gulf. Each state and region 

 has naturally some characteristic territory and hence its 

 own proper responsibility in the problem of preserving 

 for the future the varied aquatic life of the continent. 



Comments are often made on the rapid and unfortu- 

 nate disappearance of the game and food fishes as if they 

 were usually the species that suffered most seriously or 

 exclusively from the attacks of the rapacious fisherman 

 or from the insidious influences of stream pollution and 

 of changed conditions in the environment. For com- 

 mercial reasons the effects on such species are best 

 known, but there is ample evidence to show that they 

 are not the only ones affected. I wonder how many of 

 you know to what extent in some of the older states the 

 small fish, the uncommercial fish of the waters have dis- 

 appeared. A distinguished biologist, now curator of the 

 Carnegie Museum at Pittsburg, in writing on this prob- 

 lem, says that the small streams of Western Pennsyl- 

 vania have been almost entirely relieved of their origi- 

 nal fish fauna, so that the little fish which formerly 

 swarmed in every pool of their course can now hardly be 

 found at a single point in their entire extent. The nat- 

 ural conditions for fish life are fast disappearing. If 

 the original conditions are to be maintained for the future, 

 even within limited areas, some definite and appropriate 

 action must be taken immediately before everything is gone 

 and aquatic reserves set aside, kept from the encroach- 

 ment of commercial interests and from other unfavorable 

 influences of increasing population and complexity of 

 human life. 



The influence of this Society should be exercised 

 actively to bring about in some way the formation of 

 such reserves. These "fish refuges" should be some- 

 times the head waters of streams, sometimes stretches 

 in mid-stream, sometimes, let us hope, an entire stream, 



