10() y'liirlij-.si.rlh AniinalMeetiny 



Witli llic appcanincc of the I'liited States fish coiniuission 

 and snl)so(iiU'iitIy also bv the Peiinsvlvania fish commission, there 

 was a spot'dy incroaso until between 1890 and 1900 there was 

 $200,0D0 reached. In 18!)9 and 1900 shad were so abundant in 

 the Delaware river that it was not uncommon during the height 

 of the season for them to be sokl in some of the small New 

 Jersey towns as low as $1.50 and $2.00 a hundred. Between 

 1897 and 1904, Pennsylvania did no shad work on the Delaware 

 river owing to insufficient appropriation. In 1898 the United 

 States fish commission occupied and operated the Pennsylvania 

 fish commission's field station at Bristol for a portion of the 

 season, the Fish Hawk having been taken away for naval pur- 

 poses by the war department. For two years after the United 

 States government took a very large quantity of eggs from fish 

 in the Delaware river, but immediately after 1900 there was -i 

 noticeable decrease and in 1905 when the United States bureau 

 of fisheries operated the state hatchery at Torresdale jointly with 

 Pennsylvania, there were only a little over 3,900,000 eggs taken 

 and most of them from two shore nets, one at Washington Park 

 and one a short distance above Torresdale. 



Between 1890 and 1900 the United States could take that 

 many eggs in a single day easily from the Washington Park 

 fishery alone and Pennsylvania could take a like number from 

 four o'clock in the afternoon until nine o'clock from what was 

 known as the Faunce fishery near Riverton. In 1906, last year, 

 the United States bureau of fisheries, if I am correctly informed, 

 took less than 250,000 good eggs from the Washington Park 

 fishery and Pennsylvania only succeeded in getting 3,018,000 

 good eggs from the shore and gill net fishermen above the Penn- 

 sylvania railroad bridge, which crosses the river above Frank- 

 ford. This year, 1907, the United States bureau of fisheries 

 did not enter the river at all, leaving the entire work in the 

 hands oi' Pennsylvania. 



By hard lahor there was taken 5,800,000 good eggs and of 

 this number only 130,030 came from the Washington Park fish- 

 ery and the hulk were secured from a small shore seine above 

 lV)rres(lal.", Philadelphia, known as the Page fishery. The total 

 number was 5,834,00J good eggs. The exact number taken from 

 the Page fishery was 2,065,000. Another fishery owned bv a 



