THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 87 
SFR kL, EOE? SREB CaSO PY 
his heart, named this engine a trap.” He little knew that he 
had only made a small copy of a contrivance that was known 
to the Phoenicians, who used it along the shores of the Medi- 
terranean and even on the coast of Spain. There, in later days, 
the Moors called it the a/madraba, whence is derived the modern 
French word madrague. If the Moors created as much popular 
indignation with their a/madrabas as Benjamin did with his 
“traps,” the fact may account for their expulsion from Spain by 
the Gothic tribes. Fortwenty years, war and recrimination pre- 
vailed between the trappers and the hook-and-line men, until 
at length, both parties, like the Jewish factions, determined to 
appeal unto Cesar, or as he is now called, Uncle Sam, 
On the roth of February, 1871, was passed a joint resolution 
of Congress, the preamble of which says: ‘“‘ Whereas, it is asserted 
that the most valuable food fishes of the coast and the lakes of 
the United States are rapidly diminishing in number, to the pub- 
lic injury, and so as materially to affect the interests of trade 
and commerce, Zherefore, resolved, that the President be au- 
thorized to appoint a Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries.” 
It has been truly said that when the critical moment arrives, 
the man appears also; and this critical moment made no excep- 
tion to the rule. A man—nay, ¢ke man, was at once found in 
the person of Professor Spencer F. Baird. The Czsar to whom 
the warring factions had appealed could not have sent forth a 
more judicious pretor. Mercifully he was not one of those self- 
taught men (of whom, for some occult reason, we are so proud), 
but a man of careful scientific training; and one as industrious 
in collecting facts, as in arranging them. Also, was he a man of 
a pleasant countenance and conversation, and well calculated to 
assuage the irritated feelings of the hook-and liner, or to soothe 
the exasperated nerves of the trapper. Indeed, he seems to be 
the only individual in history who ever intervened between two 
combatants without receiving the blows of both. 
Henceforth the history of American fish-culture is contained 
in that of the United States Fish Commission. Its work, wide- 
spread and pushed with extraordinary energy, attracted the at- 
tention of the whole country. A greater part of the States ap- 
pointed fishery commissions, which co-operated with, and were 
