158 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
That the planting of embryo sea bass, as well as scup, in the shallow 
waters south of Cape Cod would undoubtedly be attended with good 
results, is well illustrated by an expeviment made by Mr. Edwards in 
1890. In June of that year he liberated about 50,000 fry of each of 
these species in the so-called Eel Pond at Woods Holl, a shallow tidal 
basin having an area of only a few acres. On November 7, while sein- 
ing in the pond, he caught thousands of both species, the smallest 
measuring 2 inches long and the largest 45 inches. During most of 
the same month they were observed passing out in large schools 
through the narrow outlet from the pond, becoming very common in 
the harbor at Woods Holl, but occurring nowhere else. Sea bass 
young placed in Kel Pond during the spring of 1889 apparently re- 
mained there continuously until the fall of 1890, when they had attained 
a length of 10 to 11 inches. . 
The embryology of the sea bass has been worked out in a very com- 
plete and satisfactory manner by Dr. H. V. Wilson, assistant in charge 
of the Woods Holl laboratory. A preliminary notice of his researches 
was published in the Johns Hopkins University Circular, vol. 1x, No. 
80, 1890, and the final report in the Bulletin of the Fish Commission 
for 1889.* Very instructive and important results were obtained by 
Dr. Wilson, and his observations throw much additional light on the 
origin and structure of many organs, the developmental history of 
which has been only imperfectly understood. His explanation of the 
derivation and function of the lateral line is especially interesting. 
The Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus maculdtus). 
On June 14, 1891, the steamer Fish Hawk was temporarily detached 
from the oyster survey in Tangier Sound and was detailed to carry on 
investigations respecting the hatching of Spanish mackerel in the vi- 
cinity of Cape Charles City, Virginia. Similar inquiries and experiments 
had been made in the lower Chesapeake Bay during several previous 
years ending with 1885, but the work had never been conducted on a 
large scale, and only a comparatively small number of fry had ever 
been obtained at any one time. The rapid diminution in the abun- 
dance of this valuable food species, reported from year to year, had 
again calied attention to this subject, and rendered it of considerable 
importance that additional and more positive information should be 
obtained. Lieut. Robert Platt, U. 8. Navy, was charged with the fish- 
cultural operations, and the services of Mr. J. Percy Moore, an assist- 
ant in the University of Pennsylvania, were secured to. conduct the 
scientific observations, with the view of supplementing the studies pre- 
viously made by Prof. John A. Ryder, and published in the Fish Com- 
mission Bulletin for 1881. The principal work mapped out was to de- 
4 The Embryology of the Sea Bass (Serranus atrarius). 3 By Henry V. Wilson, Ph. 
D., assistant U.S. Fish Commission, Bull. U. 8. Fish Commission, vol. rx, 1889, pp. 
209-277, pls. 88-107, 
