58 EEPOET OF THE SECEETAEY. 



mackerel, the mullet, tlie alewife, and the smelt. Also another blank 

 inviting' information as to the extent of the fishery marine, the nature of 

 the crews, the tonnage of the vessels, the apparatus used for capture, and 

 other incidentals. For the purpose of collecting this information, Mr. 

 Vina! Edwards, of Wood's Boll, an assistant of the commission, was 

 detailed to visit the fishermen along Buzzard's Bay and Vineyard Sound 

 and obtain the data which were needed for the various purposes refer- 

 red to. This was found to supplement very satisfactorily the valuable 

 body of statistics now being collected under the direction of the com- 

 missioners of inland fisheries of Massachusetts. These gentlemen have 

 been authorized by the legislature to require a report of the statistics in 

 regard to the character and catch of all the pounds, weirs, and gill-nets 

 in the commonwealth. 



The results of these several circulars will be published in full in future 

 volumes of the report, and I take great pleasure in referring to the 

 first of the series — namely, that upon menhaden, as prepared by Mr. 

 Goode. This is a most exhaustive and complete history of the subject 

 in all its relationships, scientific, biological, and economical. It occupies 

 520 pages, and is illustrated by 30 plates. It forms one of the same series 

 with the exhaustive paper by Mr. Starbuck upon the whale fisheries, 

 published in the fourth volume of the reports of the Commission. 



It is also proposed to direct special attention to the history of the 

 Southern mullet. This fish in many respects represents and may be 

 said to replace in the South the mackerel in the North. It occurs in 

 enormous numbers, indeed such as to permit its capture in even larger 

 quantities than the mackerel, coming in shore to spawn in immense 

 numbers in the autumn months. It is not at all improbable that a 

 catch of half a million barrels could easily be made, and under circum- 

 stances involving very much less expense and exposure than would be 

 needed for taking one-quarter that number of mackerel. It is caught 

 abundantly all the way from North Carolina southward into the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and is destined at no distant day to represent a very important 

 element in the resources and business of the South. At present the 

 methods of taking and curing the fish are very inferior to those prac- 

 ticed in regard to the mackerel, and the fish is consequently less esteemed ; 

 but it is not improbable that in time it will be found to occupy an almost 

 equal rank as a food-fish, and a much more important one as an article 

 of commerce. 



Another subject to which the attention of the Commission is being 

 directed is a similar inquiry in regard to the lake herring, the white- 

 fish, and the salmon trout, all of them species captured and cured in 

 great quantities, and dividing with the mackerel and the cod the demand 

 of the market. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Mr. William II. Ball, for many years an associate of the Institution, 

 in charge of its department of conchology and marine invertebrates gen- 



