428 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
planted in New England, but of them all, after they de- 
parted for the ocean, not a single fish has returned to 
the rivers from which they came. This has been a prob- 
lem hard to solve. Some one has suggested that on the 
Pacific coast, where all the rivers run westerly, the salmon 
had acquired an instinct which led them when ready for 
fresh water to swim to the East, and consequently when 
at that stage off the New England coast, they instinctively 
started for Europe and got lost on the way. But the 
more probable cause is that some special food in the sea, 
necessary for the subsistence of these young salmon, is 
absent from the waters of the coast of New England. 
This is not the place, nor would the limits of this 
work permit a detailed recital of the growth and public 
services of the Fish Commission during Baird’s life. They 
are detailed in the Annual Reports of the Bureau. 
The scientific results of the dredgings in the depths of 
the ocean are known to all naturalists. No greater addi- 
tions to knowledge in this line have been made by any 
other single intermediary. The cruises of the Fish Hawk 
and the Albatross under the direction of Tanner, Verrill, 
Agassiz and others have been especially fruitful. Foreign 
countries eagerly adopted the methods of the Commis- 
sion, which became the recipient of medals and first 
prizes at all the foreign Fisheries exhibitions of the time. 
Notwithstanding these great and unremunerated 
public services, the Commissioner was attacked and mis- 
represented from time to time by petty politicians and 
envious time-servers. This chapter may appropriately 
end with a condensed version of a memorandum prepared 
by himself in 1886, for the use of the Congressional Com- 
mittee on Fisheries, in refutation of some of these un- 
founded slanders. 
