90) Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
fine of $100 on any person, who plants the fish in any waters in 
the commonwealth. There are other charges equally grave 
against the German carp, which the department has found to be 
well founded and which will explain the abnormally rapid di- 
minishing of the black bass supply in the Pennsylvania waters. 
It has therefore prepared a bill for presentation at the next ses- 
sion of the legislature towards the reduction in numbers of the 
German carp and, if possible, its eradication from the common- 
wealth. 
The relations between the old Fish Commission and the 
United States Fish Commission were for many years very close 
and the Department of Fisheries has labored to make that rela- 
tionship even closer and more cordial, and it has been met with 
the warmest kind of response. The department feels that much 
which has been accomplished during the last year was through 
the hearty assistance of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. 
I cannot close this paper without referring to its work in yellow- 
perch culture and in blue-pike culture. The blue-pike fishing 
is today the most important industry of the fishermen who go out 
on Lake Erie from the City of Erie, and the fishermen attribute 
the abundance of that species of fish to the millions of fry which 
Pennsylvania hatches annually and plants in that body of water. 
It also observed that the demand for yellow perch in the Erie, 
Philadelphia and Pittsburg markets is increasing with each year 
and further, that there is a corresponding decrease in the supply. 
The Fish Commission had noticed the same thing and four or 
five years ago began to propagate yellow-perch in a small way. 
The department has made preparations to hatch the fish on a 
large scale. This year it hatched about two millions, which is 
but a tithe of the number contemplated and required. 
Tn addition to the work enumerated the Department of Fish- 
eries undertook to make an exhibit of the fishery resources of 
Pennsylvania at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. It secured four 
thousand square feet of space, erected thereon thirty-five aquaria, 
ranging from four to six feet each and the remainder of the 
space was occupied by nets, angling appliances, mounted speci- 
mens of creatures which prey upon fishes and other objects of 
interest associated with the fisheries work. ‘The department re- 
egrets that the live fish exhibit was not as successful as it hoped. 
