FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 165 



Arnot, Chairman of the Committee on Fish and Game of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives; Mr. Pike, and General William A. King, Attorney-General. 



On November 9, 1903, your Superintendent received a notice from General King 

 of a meeting of the Special Commission, to be held at the office of the Shellfish 

 Commission, at New Haven, on Monday, November sixteenth, requesting his 

 presence. 



The New Haven meeting was organized with Senator Hamilton in the chair. 

 Your Superintendent being called upon for a statement of his views upon the issues 

 under discussion, read a report covering the matter which he had, in the spring 

 of 1903, submitted to the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of New York State, 

 as follows: 



Office Superintendent of Shellfisheries, 

 No. 1 Madison Avenue. 



New York, March 9, 1903. 

 To The Forest, Fish and Game Commission, Albany: 



Gentlemen. — Following a correspondence, which has covered a period of over 

 two years, conferences have recently been held, in Hartford and in New York, 

 with the Connecticut State authorities for the purpose of giving effect to recom- 

 mendations made by your Superintendent of Shellfisheries in November, 1900, 

 and published in the Sixth Report of the Commission. It was then suggested 

 that, in view of the fact that upon the statute books of both States were laws 

 limiting the right to take shellfish in public waters to citizens of each State 

 respectively, some legislation of a reciprocal character should be enacted in the 

 two States,, which, in its operation, might be beneficial to the residents of both 

 States. Between Long Island, in the State of New York, and the coast of the State 

 of Connecticut, lies Long Island Sound, an immense arm of the sea. The inter- 

 state boundary being a line about one hundred miles in length, established 

 along what is practically the center of the Sound, the shellfish cultivators being 

 restricted in their operations to one or the other side of this line, accordingly as 

 their place of residence is in one State or the other, naturally questions have 

 arisen affording problems of greater or less difficulty. 



In the month of July, 1900, one John Green, a resident of Connecticut, was 

 arrested while taking lobsters in the Sound near Port Jefferson. He paid a small 

 fine after pleading guilty. At the hearing, in the presence of the justice, he said 

 that it was scarcely fair to take him alone — -that more than one hundred men from 

 Connecticut were regularly taking lobsters in "The Race,'' southwest of Fisher's 

 Island. Green, upon saying that he knew these persons, was requested to notify 

 them that they must not continue to violate the law. One month later some 

 arrests of non-resident lobster fishermen were made near Fisher's Island. One of 

 these defendants made a contest, but was unsuccessful in the courts. The Forest, 

 Fish and Game Commission, recognizing the hardships likely to fall upon the 



