14 
In drifting over the quiet eddies of the river, he had 
looked down into the clear waters and there above the 
gravel bars had seen the exudation and impregnation of 
spawn, a sight than can be witnessed any day during 
the shad season on the Upper Delaware. 
The continuous testimony of anglers against the intro- 
duction of foreign fish into our waters, and especially 
into our trout streams, is also bearing its fruit in the 
recommendation of our State Commissioners to plant 
no foreign trout in the native trout streams, for if the 
anglers are to be trusted, and there is no reason to doubt 
their opinion, our native brook trout are far superior in 
edible and gamey qualities to the foreign importations, 
and therefore as the best fish they are dest for the 
streams. 
Our angling friends say also that the European Carp 
is fast becoming a nuisance in many of our waters, and 
though coming with the reputation of a vegetarian, 
labors under the imputation of devouring the spawn and 
sometimes the young of better fish. 
On this, the twenty-third annual meeting of your 
Society, it might be well to take a brief retrospect of 
the past. 
When this society was formed in 1870, fish cultural 
operations were in their infancy. The Michigan Com- 
mission that now pours its millions of white fish and 
pike perch fry into the surrounding great lakes, was not 
created until 1871, a year later. The New York Com- 
mission was in a similarly inchoate state. The Pennsyl- 
vania Commission was just beginning to have its con- 
ception in the brains of a few enthusiastic anglers, so that 
the first meeting of the Society was composed not most- 
ly of Fish Commissioners, as at the present, but of the 
Fish Culturists, and by them was named the American 
Fish Culturists Association. In 1878 this title was 
changed to that of the American Fish Cultural Asso- 
ciation, and in 1884 tothe American Fisheries Society, 
which name it has since retained. 
