s(i()ii(!i- the belter. 1 will fi'v to have eaiis J'ur yuu, and can 

 send a man, it' necessai-y, witii you on your return * * 



"\'our".s, 



J. H. Slack, M. D., 



Dept. r. S. Commission Fisheries. 

 T. B. Feikusun, 



Commissionei' of Fisheries, 



IState of Maryland. 



We therefore i)roeeeiled to Point Pleasant, but on reaching 

 the hatehing cam}) on the night of 6th of July, were disap- 

 j)ointed at finding that Dr. (Slack had not returned, having 

 been detained at his home hy severe illness, wliich prove fatal. 

 His untimely death is thus announced in the report of tho 

 New Jersey Commissioners : -'By this event the State has 

 lost a valuable ofiicer, and his colleagues, an able and ardent 

 coadjutor. In the prime of manhood, possessing a highly 

 cultivated intellect, the bent of his intellect led him in the 

 pursuit of Natural Sciences, especially that branch relating to 

 pisciculture. In this h« became distinguished and pre-emi- 

 nently fitted ibr the ])osition lie held ; when by expo;^ure while 

 in charge of a shad hatching camp on the River Delaware, 

 under the auspices of the United States Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, he contracted a ])leurisy, which terminated fatally 

 on the twenty-seventh day of August last." 



In the absence of Dr. Slack, the young fish^ which were 

 intended for the Maryland Waters, were turned into the Dela- 

 ware River by the fishermen. After waiting for a few days 

 in the neighborhood, we found it impossible to overcome the 

 indis})osition on the part of the fishermen to the young fish 

 being I'emoved to other waters, and were comjjelled to return 

 without the ho[)ed-tbr .sliad. Thus ended the efforts of the 

 Commission to increase thi.s most valuable fish in the year 

 1874. .All efibrts tending to stocking and re-stocking our 

 rivers with this and other migratory fishes, is hypothecated 

 on the theory of their I'eturji as adults, for the purposes of re- 

 production, to those rivers in which their minority had been 

 passed. The heretofore accepted theory, tliat shad formed in 

 an immense school, on the Southern iVtlantic Coast, which 

 sending off divisions a,s it moved northward up tlie several 



