636 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
rivers, below cities, it may do important service as a scavenger, 
destroying the germs of certain human diseases, as it does the larval 
and encysted stages of the liver fluke. 
Even were it possible to estimate the money value of the damage 
done, such a basis would not be an entirely fair one for comparison. 
Should the carp help to hasten the extermination of any of our water- 
fowl, or if it destroys the beauty of lakes, as is claimed, this is a harm 
which can not be reckoned in dollar and cents. As has been pointed 
out elsewhere, however, there are other and more influential factors 
at work in the destruction of the water-fowl; and in the other case 
special measures of prevention and protection must be employed. 
And when we have decided whether the carp does more harm than 
good, we still have the real question before us. The essential problem 
is this: The carp is here, and here to stay; what are we going to do 
with it? How can we make the most of its good qualities and prevent 
it from doing damage? Even were such a course desirable, the 
extermination of the carp in our waters is out of the question. Mr. 
Townsend, in some remarks before the American Fisheries Society 
(Transactions of Thirtieth Annual Meeting, 1901, p. 123) stated the 
case well when he said: 
We hear a great deal from sportsmen’s clubs and from other sources as to how the 
carp can be exterminated. It can not be exterminated. It is like the English spar- 
row, it is here to stay. At a meeting of the American Ornithologists’ Union 
a while ago, one of our foremost ornithologists stated that the European sparrow 
could not be exterminated in thiscountry. I think it isthe same with the carp. It 
is here to stay and we can not exterminate it any more than we can exterminate 
the green grass of the fields. I do not wish to pose as an advocate of the carp—I 
prefer other fish for myself—but I maintain that the carp has a place in good and 
regular standing in our big eastern markets, and I do not think that our great repub- 
lic with its rapidly increasing population, can afford to sneer at even so cheap a 
source of food. : 
In the course of my investigations and inquiries I met frequent 
propositions that the government, or the respective state governments, 
should offer a bounty on carp. Nothing could be more futile than this, 
as has been abundantly illustrated in the case of the English sparrow. 
The best bounty that can be offered is an increasing market—a grow- 
ing demand that will make fishing for carp a profitable business. The 
case in Lake St. Clair is a good illustration. While there I heard the 
bounty proposition frequently advocated by sportsmen who came to 
the flats to fish and hunt. But a shrewd resident said, let the state 
amend the laws so as to allow the taking of carp in nets, and there 
will soon be enough people fishing for them to reduce their numbers. 
Since then the laws have been changed so as to allow seining in the 
lake, and if the removal of enormous quantities of the fish (see p. 614) 
will do anything toward permanently reducing their numbers, such 
certainly ought to be the result there now. The lines along which it 
