CONSIDERATION OF INDIVIDUAL FISH 83 



have frequently stated their opinion that the hatcheries are beneficial 

 in increasing the supply of fish, and in years of abundance they 

 attribute the increase to the operations of the hatchery. Fulton 

 states that at certain parts of the coast of Aberdeenshire the line 

 fishermen, who annually petition for supplies of plaice fry from 

 the Scottish Fishery Board Hatchery at the Bay of Nigg, have 

 also expressed the opinion that the liberation along the coast has 

 increased the number of plaice in the inshore waters. The inshore 

 trawlers of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire go even further. They 

 say they can distinguish the plaice hatched and liberated from the 

 Lancashire Sea Fisheries Hatchery at Piel, Barrow, from the local 

 race. The fish hatched from Piel are of Scottish origin, their parents 

 being obtained from the closed waters of Luce Bay. Although, 

 personally, one is sceptical as to this, there can be no doubt of the 

 existence of this opinion, which is strongly held by a large section 

 of these trawlers. It must not be forgotten that fishermen may 

 support hatcheries as an alternative to restrictive legislation, 

 apart altogether from the respective merits of these two methods of 

 increasing the supply of sea fish. 



Dr. Fulton points out that the results of fish hatching operations 

 may be tested in one of three ways. Either (i) by the iatroduction 

 of a fish not indigenous to the region, or (2) by a system of special 

 statistics of the fish caught in the region over a series of years 

 when no fry were added to the waters, and over another series of 

 years when fry were liberated ; or finally (3) by special investiga- 

 tions to determine the abundance of the young fish in years when 

 fry were added and in years when they were not added. 



Unfortvmately there is no available evidence under the first 

 heading for marine fish, though there is very striking evidence in 

 the case of an anadromous fish (the American Shad). 



This fish was formerly non-existent in the Pacific, but in 1871 a 

 consignment of 12,000 fry, about eight days old, from the Hudson 

 River on the Atlantic coast, were put in the Sacramento River by 

 the California Fish Commission. In 1873 another consignment of 

 35,000 fry were added ; in 1876, 99,000 ; in 1877, 110,000 ; in 1878, 

 150,000 ; and in 1880, 215,000 ; the total being 621,000 shad fry. 

 From these small colonies amounting to less than i per cent of the 

 number now annually planted in the Atlantic slope rivers, the shad 

 have multiplied and distributed themselves along nearly 3000 miles 

 of the coast from southern California to south-eastern Alaska. An 

 adult shad is said to have been taken in 1873, and sixteen were 

 taken in 1874 and 1875 ; in 1876 and 1877 they had become quite 

 common in the Sacramento River, and some were found along the 

 coast over an extent of 400 miles. In the spring of 1879 several 



