1396 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



the reports of Baird, again, and the pioneers, Atkins, Clark, Green, Hessel, 

 McDonald, and Stone, and their successors, constitute practically a history of 

 fish culture in America. The Manual of Fish Culture, first issued in 1897 and 

 revised in 1900, is yet the only publication in English covering that subject. 

 The seven-volume Fisheries atid Fishery Industries of the United States, by 

 Goode and his associates — Clark, Collins, Earll, Elliott, McDonald, and True — 

 though published about twenty years ago, remains a standard work of reference. 

 Of special interest and value during recent years have been the numerous con- 

 tributions of Evermann, either alone or in collaboration, on the fishes of Hawaii, 

 Porto Rico, the interior and coastal waters of America, etc. ; the reports of 

 Benedict, Rathbun, and others on crustacean resources, of Herrick on the 

 lobster, of Kunz on pearls, of Moore on oysters and oyster culture, of Parker 

 and Herrick on the special senses in fishes, and various other papers by regular 

 assistants of the Bureau on economic, biological, and fish-cultural subjects. 

 In addition to the foregoing, the publications treat of the physical conditions 

 in lakes and streams, the methods used in deep-sea investigation, and all forms 

 of minute animal and plant life in their relation to fishes — reaching into the 

 fields of oceanography, hydrography, geology, and chemistry, as well as biology. 

 The Bureau is thus responsible for a literature which no bibliography of natural 

 science could omit and which has an educational value and popular interest 

 widely acknowledged and availed of. 



For the first ten years of the existence of the Bureau its publications were 

 comprised in a series of annual octavo volumes known as the "Commissioner's 

 Report." In 1881 another series was begun, likewise of annual issue, and desig- 

 nated "Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission." These two series 

 endured as instituted until the year 1905, when new legislation brought about a 

 change. So far as form is concerned, however, the change affects only the com- 

 missioner's report. This report is no longer a bound book containing a detailed 

 discussion of the year's work, with special reports appended, but is reduced to a 

 brief administrative statement of results, occupying less than 50 octavo pages. 

 The special reports formerly pubHshed as appendixes and making up the major 

 portion of the original volume are now issued as separate, independent pam- 

 phlets under distinct title-pages and covers. These papers are, in general, fish 

 cultural and economic, being detailed accounts of special investigations or 

 experiments briefly noticed in the commissioner's report, and, as a rule, con- 

 temporary. The relationship of their subject-matter is recognized in their 

 size and typographical style, which is such as to permit them to be bound, if 

 desired, with the commissioner's report to which they pertain. They are 

 issued at no fixed intervals, but from time to time, according to quantity and 

 character of material and the exigencies of printing, each annual group, however, 

 being usually completed within the year the commissioner's report is issued. 



