THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 177 
movement of the shad, it would be marvelous indeed if any succeeded in 
gaining the upper stretches of the river. 
The deadly fish-basket has played its part in the wanton destruction 
of fishes of nearly every kind and is worthy of the most severe condem- 
nation. Its long arms or wings of stone reaching from the basket in or 
near the middle of the stream, in an upward direction on either side 
towards the shores, gather in every living creature carried by the cur- 
rent. A slight blow that will displace a scale will cause the death of 
these delicate little fish, and scarcely a young shad which succeeds in 
passing through the slats of the basket will live, while millions are 
caught upon the basket and there left to die. As many as a cartload of 
young shad have been known to accumulate in a single basket in less 
than one night and were shoveled out to fertilize the land on which they 
were left to rot. When these facts are considered in connection with 
the natural enemies of these young fish which they always have to 
contend with, it is not at all surprising that our streams became de- 
populated. 
The Board of Commissioners commenced in an energetic way the work 
of the restoration of the fisheries. The first step taken was in the direc- 
tion of removing the fish-baskets, but some difficulty was met with on 
account of the peculiar construction of the law requiring ten days’ notice 
to be given by the sheriff before proceeding with a posse comitatus to 
destroy the basket. The commissioners earnestly recommended that 
that portion of the law requiring ten days’ notice be stricken out, and 
that the passage of the law should be in itself sufficient notice. And that 
in addition to the required destruction of the baskets, an act imposing 
a penalty for the erection or maintenance of fish-baskets be passed. With 
this law upon the statute books and the means then at their command 
the board believed that in another year they would be able to announce 
the entire removal of the destructive fish-baskets. 
With the drift-net it was very different. This interest being too large 
and too valuable to be swept away by an enactment. A proper “close 
time” and a strict observance of it would to a great extent assist in re- 
pairing the losses caused by these nets. Besides the ground is often 
inaccessible to a shore fishery, and consequently the only means of fish- 
‘ing it is with a drift or gilling net. ; 
It was plainly seen that the chief reliance in reviving the shad fish- 
eries must be by artificial propagation, and soon after their appointment 
the commissioners placed themselves in communication with Seth 
Green, the famous fish culturist, then residing at Rochester, New York, 
and purchased from him the right to use his patent hatching-boxes for 
shad, for three years, in the State of Pennsylvania, for the sum of $2,000. 
Marvelous results it was claimed had been obtained in the rivers of 
other states by the use of this appliance. In the Connecticut river, 
where the fisheries were rapidly being abandoned on account of the 
12 FIsHEs. 
