Our Fish Immigrants 



3«7 



future students of geographical distribu- 

 tion and variation. A phase of this work 

 is seen in the long-continued and whole- 

 sale planting of shad from the Potomac, 

 Susquehanna, and Delaware rivers in 

 practically every other stream on the At- 

 lantic coast, with the result that what- 

 ever local varieties or races of shad may 

 once have existed are now no longer 

 recognizable. Some years ago I under- 

 took to verify the oft-repeated contention 

 of old fishermen, that shad from different 

 parts of the coast exhibit peculiarities of 

 form and color ; and, as a matter of fact, 

 this was to be expected, from the views 

 now held regarding the migration of the 

 species — the schools that enter a given 

 region, such as Chesapeake Bay or the 

 Gulf of Maine, not being made up of in- 

 dividuals hatched in numerous or widely 

 separated hydrographic basins, but con- 

 stituting a definite contingent whose im- 

 mediate and remote ancestors had fre- 

 quented the same waters. In this inquiry 

 many thousands of specimens from the 

 Saint Johns to the Kennebec were criti- 

 cally examined, but with only negative re- 

 sults, so far as the existence of local 

 races was concerned, and the conclusion 

 was reached that the promiscuous artifi- 

 cial mixing of shad in the different rivers 

 had led to the final obliteration of what- 

 ever differences had originally existed. 



Fortunately the artificial extension of 

 the range of our interior and coastwise 

 fishes is not so serious a matter now as 

 it would have been earlier, for the sys- 

 tematic examination of our lakes and 

 streams under federal and state auspices 

 has gone so far that the natural geograph- 

 ical range of nearly all our fishes has 

 been accurately determined. 



EASTERN FISH IN NEW EASTERN WATERS 



In all the waters of the eastern half 

 of the country the range of all the im- 

 portant native food and game fishes has 

 been extended artificially. Very exten- 

 sive work has been done with the black 

 basses, the crappies, the rock bass, the 

 brook trout, the land-locked salmon, the 

 lake trout, and the more desirable cat- 



fishes, while a number of very excellent 

 fishes with restricted original distribution 

 have been judiciously scattered and thus 

 brought to the notice of thousands of peo- 

 ple who would otherwise never have 

 known them. 



The debt that sportsmen owe to the 

 fishery service of the United States and 

 the several states for their acclimatiza- 

 tion work is heavy and increasing yearly, 

 and the obligation is shared indirectly, 

 but not the less actually, by hotel-keepers, 

 boatmen, merchants, land-owners, and 

 others. There could be cited numerous 

 concrete examples of the varied benefits 

 that have come to communities through 

 the stocking of local waters with non- 

 indigenous species. In some cases the 

 improvement in the fishing has so in- 

 creased the influx of people that land 

 about the waters has increased several 

 hundred per cent in value in a few years. 



SAEMON IN HUDSON AND DELAWARE 

 RIVERS 



A controversy was waged for many 

 years over the question whether the Hud- 

 son was originally a salmon stream. The 

 chief basis for the belief that the Atlantic 

 salmon frequented that river in former 

 da3's was the mention of salmon in sev- 

 eral early Dutch documents and in va- 

 rious entries in the log of the Halfmoon 

 during Henry Hudson's memorable visit 

 to the river in 1609. No salmon were 

 actually caught by Hudson's crew, and 

 there is every reason to believe that the 

 fish they saw and the fish referred to 

 in the records of New Holland were some 

 other species. Certain it is that there 

 is no evidence of the existence of salmon 

 in the Hudson, except possibly as mere 

 stragglers, at any time during the eigh- 

 teenth century or in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, until about 1890, when the national 

 government, cooperating with the State 

 of New York, attempted to establish the 

 salmon in this noble river — a feat that 

 would have meant a great deal to anglers, 

 net fishermen, and the general public. 



It is a matter of no little interest that 

 as early as 1771 the colony of New York 



