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BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
Fish were found to be fairly abundant everywhere, and in the districts not 
affected by the lumbering or mining operations they were quite plentiful. Trout are 
native to all the streams and in places afford good angling. Black bass have been 
introduced, very probably unwisely. The bass and trout are not congenial com- 
panions, and sooner or later one or the other is driven out—usually the trout. The 
first plants of black bass were made in 1854 by Mr. William Shriver, of Wheeling, the 
fish being brought from the Ohio River in the tank of a locomotive and deposited in 
the canal basin at Cumberland. From the canal basin they escaped into the Poto- 
mac River, where they have greatly increased. More have since been planted at 
various times and places, until now the Potomac and its tributaries are well stocked. 
SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA. 
In 1900 the work was taken up in the southern part of the state. Beginning 
July 5, nearly two months were occupied in the examination of streams and in mak- 
ing extensive collections of the aquatic animals and plants. The route followed 
made it possible to reach and to study at several different points the tributaries of 
the New, Great Kanawha, Greenbrier, Big Sandy, and Guyandotte rivers, of the Ohio 
basin. All of these have water slightly warmer than the streams tributary to the 
Monongahela. The beds of most of them are rocky, but in many places there are 
long intervals of mud, sand, or gravel. Until within very recent years the fish life 
was extremely abundant, but it is now becoming more difficult each season to secure 
a good catch. No trout were taken in this region, though they were seen in some of 
the smaller streams and are said to have been abundant in the larger streams some 
years ago. 
The agencies which have cooperated to injure and to destroy the fish are the 
same as those in the northern part of the state, with the additional bad effects of 
more active work in coal mining near the heads of the streams. Thus the fish of the 
Bluestone River have been greatly reduced in numbers throughout nearly the entire 
length of the stream by the mining operations at Pocahontas, Va. In Wyoming and 
McDowell counties logging and coal mining have together wrought great destruction, 
and streams which were formerly known far and wide as fine fishing streams are now 
muddy, filthy currents in which few if any fish are to be found. The railroads, in 
opening up new regions, have employed and brought into the country irresponsible 
persons who have had no hesitancy in using dynamite in order to secure a few fish, 
thus at the same time killing great numbers of others. Such conditions, all incidental 
to the industrial development of the country, could nevertheless, and should, be con- 
trolled by the state. 
FISHES COLLECTED.¢ 
The number of species of fishes found in the northern part of the state was 45; 
in the southern part but 28 were taken. Why there should be this difference is 
not clear, but it is probably due to the injurious effect of the lumbering and mining 
operations, which are more energetically pursued in this than in the northern 
2 A report on the plants collected during this investigation has been published in the Proceedings 
of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. XIII, Oct. 31, 1900, p. 171-182, under the title ‘Some 
plants of West Virginia,’’ by E. L. Morris, botanist of the party. 
