100 Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania. 



In 1877 much excitement was caused by the capture of a large salmon 

 thirty-two inches Ions: in Givetzinger's mill race on the Bushkill at the 

 foot of Fourth street. In the same year a number of others were taken 

 in the Delaware, and one " fine specimen " presumably a Pacific salmon, 

 in the Susquehanna. Between that date and 1 879 several other speci- 

 mens were captured in the Delaware river, some of them weighing- as 

 much as twenty-five pounds, and on May 11, 1879, a female, measuring 

 three feet_four and a half inches, and weighing about seventeen pounds, 

 was captured in a gill net off Spesuter Island in the Susquehanna river, 

 by Mr. Frank Farr, of Havre-de-Grace. 



But these catches practically ceased after 1879, and the fish commis- 

 sioners were compelled in 1884 to admit that the experiments were fail- 

 ures, and concluded that it would " be a waste of time and money to 

 repeat " them. " The waters of Pennsylvania," they believed " are evi- 

 dently not suited to this fish, however desirable it would be to have it 

 planted and thriving in them." 



The succeeding board of commissioners, however, were not satisfied, 

 that — though the experiments of Thaddeus Norris and others in plant- 

 ing salmon in the Delaware river, were failures, further work was hope- 

 less. They saw that the New York commision had received a fair meas- 

 ure of success in stocking the Hudson river with this noble fish, and 

 they felt that the Delaware ought to be as equally good as that river. 

 Its freedom from artificial obstructions, its long rifts and splendid pools, 

 the purity and low temperature of its upper waters, so pure and cold 

 that trout thrives therem for over one hundred miles below its source, 

 all filled the requirements of a salmon river. Notwithstanding, there- 

 fore, the first failures, the present commissioners in 1889 secured 100,000 

 eggs of the Penobscot salmon from the United States Commission and 

 had them hatched at Allentown. The fry, all strong and vigorous, were 

 deposited in the streams tributary to the headwaters of the upper Del- 

 aware, in Wayne county. Two years later, 300,000 more eggs were 

 hatched at Allentown and Corry and deposited in the same streams. 

 Although yet too early to speak positively as to the results of this 

 work, there is every reason to believe that the experiment will at least 

 not prove a total failure. The young smelts were seen in the Delaware 

 in considerable numbers last year, and this year large numbers of the 

 planting of 1891 have been obsei-ved as well as vigorous fish of those 

 hatched in 1889. 



Grayling. 



The earlier commissioners had an idea that grayling might be added 

 to the fishes of the state, and consulted wth Mr. Norris as to the possi- 

 bilities of doing this. That gentlemen gave but little encouragement 

 to the project, pointing out that, with very few exceptions, the streams 

 of the state appeared to be suitable to the fish as those of their own 



