Pound-Netting. 85 
come into the bay or river to spawn. When I moved down 
in May, these pounds were as full of spawn as they could be, 
and the next year it was a rare thing to catch a weakfish. 
These pounds took all the weakfish that came in, and when 
there was no market for them, they were dumped out. I 
have seen thirty bushels dumped out in the lower bay. A 
fish that escapes these pounds is a very clever fish. I sug- 
gested to the President before the meeting that it would be 
difficult to suppress the laying of pounds. In Massachusetts 
there is a law to compel the owners of pounds to leave 
them from Friday to Monday, for the purpose of giving 
the fish power to spawn. I would suggest that it would be 
well if we could make the fishermen understand that it is 
for their benefit-to have a law passed. Bass-fishing and 
weak-fishing will be stopped in New York altogether soon 
if this is not done. 
Dr. Green: I am familiar with South Bay. What Mr. 
Campbell says is precisely the case in South Bay. 
Mr. SerH Grern: I perfectly agree with what these 
gentlemen have said. Permit me to say a word about the 
locality of fish. Fish are local. There is a certain fish that 
goes into a certain water—the Great South Bay we will take 
for an example. There is a family of fish that never go 
into any other bay but Great ‘South Bay, and these nets set 
across the inlets will in a very short time clean the whole 
thing out, and there never will be in this generation any 
more fish there, unless they are hatched artificially. I will 
tell you something about pound-nets. It is a fence made 
with nets, and on the head of it is a trap which takes 
everything which comes along. The trap is as effectual as 
if you put up a fence outside your field, and there was nothing 
there that looked any different from the regular cattle-place, 
