168 American Fisheries Society. 



have been in the aquarium at Washington, which is a splendid one. 

 This thought suggests itself to me: that you put a sign up in the 

 aquarium stating that this kind of game fish can be reared in 

 certain waters provided that the water is not polluted. Before the 

 Virginia Game Department was established the United States Bu- 

 reau of Fisheries did not send us many fish because they thought 

 that we in Virginia did not protect the fish. We are getting our 

 share now. I feel satisfied that sometimes they have not sent fish 

 to Virginia because those fish were requested for certain rivers that 

 the Bureau was satisfied were polluted. 



You gentlemen who are doing so much for the anglers and to 

 whom the anglers are so much indebted for the scientific work that 

 you are accomplishing, ought to pay some attention to the pollution 

 end of it. The anglers do not seem to organize as the hunters do ; the 

 hunters are the men who get legislation, and anglers for the most 

 part come to us when they want anything of that kind. If we will 

 interest the state health departments and the departments of agri- 

 culture in this pollution business, I believe we can secure legisla- 

 tion ; but until we do we are not going to get anywhere. 



As to the nature of the pollution, or trade waste in our inland 

 streams of v/hich I am speaking, it is at one place, for instance, 

 a sulphite that is doing most of the damage. Our state has taken 

 action to prohibit these mills from emptying their trade waste into 

 our streams, but we have never got anywhere. We have a law 

 prohibiting any man from putting any noxious or deleterious sub- 

 stances into a watercourse whereby the fish therein may be de- 

 stroyed. But when you take a case into court you have got to have 

 the fish there and you have got to prove that that fish was destroyed 

 by the pollution of which you are complaining. We may have 

 three or four saw-mills on a river where the sawdust is killing the 

 fish. We may produce evidence to show that the fish are being 

 affected by sawdust in the gills, but then we have to prove that the 

 particular saw-mill we are after put that sawdust in the river; and 

 when it comes to a criminal action of that kind — well, you simply 

 cannot do it. 



Discussion. 



Mr. a. L. Millett, Boston, Mass.: I find myself in accord with Mr. 

 Hart's ideas as to publicity being one of the best weapons to combat this 

 menace of pollution. I also feel that if you are going to discuss pollution 

 you should not confine it to the streams. The states have control also 

 of the coastal waters, and there you find the greatest of all pollution, that of 



