156 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



from the muddy water and placed in the vessels for trans- 

 porting, they quickly die in transit. Last season, on a trip 

 of one hundred and fifty miles on the Missouri side of the 

 Mississippi River, I saw enough fish in the adjoining flats 

 that were dying or would die, to supply the whole State if 

 they could have been rescued and distributed. This would 

 have been impracticable for the greater part, but it illus- 

 trates the possibilities where the conditions and location of 

 deep water are favorable. Nearly all of these ponds are 

 well filled with spawn if the water remains high until after 

 the spawning season is over ; and bass, crappie, bream, cat- 

 fish, ring or yellow perch, white perch, carp, buffalo, hick- 

 ory shad, minnows, etc., are all found, and for the last two 

 seasons wall-eyed pike (pike perch) were seen. The 

 coarser varieties constitute about eighty-five per cent of 

 the whole, and of these the shad usually predominate, great 

 quantities of them being found in most of such places. 

 They are not hardy enough to stand being moved at all, 

 unless it happens that the ponds are so near deep water 

 that the contents of the seine can be emptied bodily without 

 trying to separate the varieties for distribution. 



One of the practical phases of the rescue work is the 

 saving of coarse fish that are just under the legal size for 

 market purposes. During the open season, when seining 

 is lawful, all fish of such size are not taken by the fisher- 

 men, and many are thrown back into the ponds to die unless 

 they are rescued in time, in which case they have the benefit 

 of another season's growth and add materially in the natural 

 increase in the supply. 



Locally, the rescue work is of vital importance, and it 

 seems that it would be of great economic value if the states 

 or the national government would assume control and over- 

 come existing conditions, pursuing this work to such an 

 extent as to preserve these fish wherever found. 



Another factor in this question that will make some such 

 step an imperative necessity, sooner or later, is the fact that 

 each succeeding year finds the area of breeding grounds 



