XI 



economy. Ripe mackerel can be found in considerable 

 numbers in the lower part of the Chesapeake Bay, and 

 it may be necessary, in order to conduct the work on a 

 sufficiently large scale, to collect and hatch the eggs out- 

 side of the limits of the State, but the young fish can 

 thereafter be very readily transported to the upper por- 

 tions of the Bay. 



The investigations of the past season have develox^ed the 

 fact that a considerable number of ]'ipe mackerel may be 

 secured in the neighborhood of Crisheld, and several 

 fishermen, who have been employed in the cai)ture of 

 this fish, testify that it has not been a great many years 

 since they could be found as far up the Bay as Balti- 

 more, the mouth of the Patapsco River, and elsewhere. 



It is certain that the number oT this most valuable 

 fish has been very materially diminished in the waters 

 of the State, and that they are becoming more scarce 

 every year. It will, doubtless, require several years to 

 restore them to their former abundance, and to make 

 the catch plentiful enough to furnish a sufficient number 

 of spawning fishes to warrant the establishment of hatch- 

 ing-stations h igli up the Chesapeake Ba y . But as the fish 

 can be very readily transported, the proper mode of pro- 

 ceeding would seem to be to hatcli them at favorable places, 

 where they can be had in large numbers, and transfer 

 the young from thence. It is quite likely that they will 

 return periodically to the localities where they were first 

 deposited, for this habit seems to be as strangely charac- 

 teristic of the coast fishes as of those which inhabit or 

 frequent more inland waters. By way of evidence in 

 suj)port of this expectation, I would refer to the experi- 

 ence of the U. S. Fish Commission in the propagation of 

 cod, in Gloucester Harbor. During tlie winter of 1878 

 Prof. ]3aird establislied a sin all ex])eiimental station at 

 this x)oint and succeeded in hatching out some millions 

 of young cod. These were liberated in the harbor at 

 Glou('ester, and the following summer and fall young 



