FOREIGN RESEARCH ORGANISATIONS 145 



that every fisherman may take all he can catch, 

 than to enforce a code of protection laws." 

 Thirty-five hatching stations, including the Woods 

 Hole laboratory, are engaged in this work, and 

 are assisted by the steamer Fish-Hawk and other 

 smaller vessels, and by the famous Commission 

 " fish-cars," specially fitted railway carriages which 

 are engaged continually in the work of transport- 

 ing fish to the hatcheries, and eggs and larvae from 

 these stations to the waters to be stocked. In the 

 year 1900 these cars made journeys of 101,796 

 miles altogether. The extent of the fish-hatching 

 work may be gauged from the fact that in that 

 year 1 1 64 millions of young fishes and larvae were 

 hatched and distributed throughout the waters 

 of the United States. The bulk of these were 

 fresh-water or anadromous fishes, but they included 

 265 millions of cod (hatched at Woods Hole), 

 87 millions of flat fish, and 77 millions of lobster 

 fry. It is claimed that this work is thoroughly 

 successful and has been attended with beneficial 

 results. Opinion in Europe is not generally in 

 favour of the improvement of the sea-fisheries by 

 artificial propagation, although this work is carried 

 on both in Norway and in Britain. American 

 expert opinion seems, however, to be quite 

 unanimous. " The great river fisheries of the 

 United States, which produced in 1880, 48 

 million pounds of alewives (Clupea pseudoharengus)^ 

 1 8 million pounds of shad (Alosa sapidissima), 52 



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