470 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[.Tin* 10, 1884. 



fere with our treaty obligations under the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington. For two seasons a sub-committee of that committee 

 bas been investigating the subject, and has visited many of 

 the principal points along the ocean coast from Foi tress Mon- 

 roe, Virginia, to Portland, Maine. A volume of valuable tes- 

 timony has been gathered on the subject, and I confess that 

 I had ino conception of the importance of this question until I 

 entered upon that investigation. It is almost as fathomless 

 as the ocean itself. We have met this evening to consider 

 tins grave and important subject, and I now take great pleas- 

 ure in introducing to you the Hon. Theodore Lyman, of Mas- 

 sachusetts, who will deliver the annual address of the Asso- 

 ciation." 



SPEECH OP HON. THEODORE LYMAN. 



Old Rondelet wrote a great work at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century on sea fishes. His breadth of view included 

 under the tei-m ''Fishes" almost every living thing that he 

 found in salt water. It is in relation not to a fish but to the 

 radiated Medusa-head that he uses these fine words, more 

 f atniliar, perhaps, to our older naturalists than to those of the 

 rising generation: Immensa et summe admirabilis poi 

 potentia atque solertia in rebus cailestibus Usque quce in acre 

 et terra fiunt, maxime vera in mari, in quo tarn varies et 

 stvpendce rerum forma; cons/iiciuntur ut qumrendi et con- 

 templandi mdlus usquam futnrus sit finis — "Vast and highly 

 admirable are the power and skill of God in things heavenly 

 and earthly and in those of the ah*, but more especially in the 

 sea, where are beheld shapes so various and stupendous that 

 the study and contemplation of them shall never end." 



He spoke thus in the spirit of prophecy. Three centuries 

 have passed and we are still contemplating and investigating 

 the things of the sea. We have skimmed its surface with 

 muslin nets in search of its infusoria, and we have let down 

 dredges and scraped its valleys three miles deep, and still the 

 shapes various and stupendous continue to multiply. The 

 more workers there, are, the more work remains to be done. 

 Humble clams, worms and urchins take on great importance 

 and become marine Sphinxes, asking riddles that no one can 

 answer. Creatures that once were conveniently dismissed as 

 gelatinous, or gristly, now advance claims to an intricate cir- 

 culatory system, to muscular fibres and to nervous ganglia. 

 Naj r , they proudly look down on the vertebrates, in the mat- 

 ter of reproduction, as thev pass gracefully through the 

 varied stages of alternate generation and self-division. 



Rondelet lived near a sea whose inhabitants were well cal- 

 culated to excite his wonder and delight. He was professor 

 of medicine at Montpellier, not many miles from Aigues-Mor- 

 tes, the port whence St. Louis embarked for his crusade, and 

 whose walls, now surrounded by dry land, were in the middle 

 of the sixteenth century still bathed by the waters of the 

 Mediterranean. The shallows of the bay teemed with the 

 smaller crustacea and shells, while the open sea beyond was 

 then ; as now. the home of many fishes, varied in form and 

 brilliant in color— the whiting, the red mullet, and the tunny 

 celebrated by classic writers. There, too, were found the 

 darting squids and the great-eyed octopus, while from its 

 depths came the rosy coral. 



In the ancient medical school of Montepelher, still hangs 

 the portrait of Rondelet in his red gown. He has a placid 

 look of a man who was master of his studies, and who stood 

 well with science and with the church. For had he not as a 

 patron, Bishop Pelicier? and was he not the first authority in 

 zoology and medicine, at a time when a good scholar 

 could acquire all that was known of these and many things 

 besides? 



Every gain in knowledge has a loss that balances it. As the 

 current of human thought grows wider, it becomes also more 

 shallow, and splits into that infinitude of little channels which 

 now are called specialties. In each of these channels may be 

 seen a diligent investigator urging forward his little skiff, 'and 

 well contented to be navigating what to him seems the great 

 river of truth. 



Learning has grown so great in our day, that the genius of 

 one man can grasp no more than a part of it ; so that in pro- 

 portion as learning becomes larger, generalization, which is 

 the final end of learning, grows more difficult. Worse than 

 this, the mind employed on particular investigations gets 

 unsymmetrical. The side that is used is strengthened; the 

 disused side fails, and there results a scholar who believes in 

 one set of ideas only. 



After all then, we must look with a certain envy at the 

 state of mind of old Rondelet. Like most men of his age, he 

 had that richness of thought and expression which comes of 

 many-sided culture, and a strong faith in things both material 

 and immaterial. When he said "Dei potentia," he distinctly 

 meant power of God, and not "potentialities" or "molecular 

 environment" or "power that works for righteousness," or any 

 of those, modern euphuisms which taste in the mouth like 

 weak boiled arrow-root. Nevertheless, if we look closely, we 

 can find the beginnings of that skepticism which plays so 

 great a part in one day. For both he and his bishop Pelicier 

 were strongly suspected of favoring the Reformation. As to 

 his colleague, Rabelais, he was noted for his unorthodox 

 opinions, and went so far as to describe the future life as a 

 "great perhaps." 



But it is high time to leave Rondelet, and turn our attention 

 to his sea-fishes. Their importance was great then; it is 

 greater now. We might know by analogy, did we not know 

 by actual research, that fishes have ever been of the first im- 

 portance for men's food. Their natural abundance and the 

 easy capture of shallow species put them within the reach of 

 the primitive savage. The skeleton of the pre-historic chief, 

 found in the cave of Mentone, had a head ornament, a net 

 strung with Trochus shells, showing that he had walked the 

 beaches of the neighboring Mediterranean, whose waters 

 doubtless furnished his food. 



The shell heaps of Scandinavia and of America, contain 

 abundant bones of fish. Morton, of Merry Mount (163S), gives 

 us a good idea how these shell heaps were formed, when he 

 tells how the Indians came each year to the shore near Quincy, 

 in Massachusetts, and there camped for a long time, feasting 

 on the plentiful clams and lobsters, and alewives and striped 

 bass, whose shells and bones combined with the camp offal to 

 build those deposits that we call shell heaps. 



In New England it must have been the fish that furnished 

 the surest support to the native savages. Even in the depths 

 of its Arctic winter there was a chance to get eels, smelts and 

 clams, and at the first approach of mild weather the waters 

 teemed with abundance. "It (Pawtucket Falls) is excellently 

 accommodated with a fishing place," wrote good Mr. Gookih 

 in 1674, "and there is taken a variety of fish in their seasons, 

 such as salmon, shad, lamprey eels, sturgeon, bass, and divers 

 others. And this place being an ancient and capital seat of 

 the Indians, they came to fish ; and this good man (Mr. Eliot) 

 takes this opportunity to spread the net of the Gospel to fish 

 tor their souls." 



That child of Belial, Morton, of Merry Mount, as keen a 

 sportsman as any of our Bohemian backwoodsman, gives en- 

 thusiastic accounts of the abundance and excellence of the 

 fish which were in the sea convenient to his house. Ho is the 

 first author that mentions cod-liver oil, which now plays so 

 beneficent, though nauseous, a part in medicine. 



He writes: "The coast aboundeth with such multitude of 

 codd that the inhabitants of New England doe dunge their 

 grounds with codd, and it is a commodity better than the golden 

 mines of the Spanish Indes. * * * Create store of traine 

 oyle is mayd of the livers of the codd and is a commodity that 

 without question will enrich the inhabitants of New England 

 quickly." 



Almost coincident with the establishment of Plymouth col- 

 ony, we find laws concerning the fisheries, proof positive of the 

 esteem in which they were held. 



In 1633 was passed what I take to be the first law for the en- 

 couragement of fishenltuvc. id these words; "It is enacted by 



the Court * * * but if any man desire to improve a place 

 and stocke it with fish of any kind for his private use, it 

 shal bee lawfull for the Court to make any such graunb and 

 for bid ah others to make use of it." 



In 1637 the same court enacted, with the contrary-mind ed- 

 ness of our Puritan forefathers, that six score and twelve 

 fishes shall be accounted to the hundred of all sorts of fishes. 



In 1670, it was set forth with pious teleology that "the provi- 

 dence of God hath made Cape Cod commodious for us, for fish- 

 ing with seines;" implying that it might not be commodious 

 for less religious persons. The act goes on to state that "care- 

 less persons" must not interfere with the said providence, "by 

 leaving the garbage of fish to he there," 



The country had not been settled a half century before there 

 was complaint of the diminution of fish. The act just quoted 

 goes on to speak of the great inconvenience of taking mackerel 

 at unseasonable times, whereby their increase is greatly dimin- 

 ished, and a law was passed prohibiting the catching of fish 

 before they have "spaumed." This shows that our ancestors 

 were not more logical than most of them descendants, who 

 still hold, that to take a fish when ripe for spawning is in 

 some peculiar way destructive to the species. It is almost 

 needless to say that fishes taken at any time of year are killed 

 before they have "spaumed." The only reason that it is more 

 destructive to take fish during the spawning season is because 

 they are then tamer and are crowded together, so that greater 

 numbers are likely to be captured. 



The river fisheries, too, called aloud for protection. In 1709, 

 it was enacted "That no weirs, hedges, fish garths, stakes, 

 kiddles or other disturbance or encumbrance shall be set, 

 erected or made on or across any liver, to the stopping, ob- 

 structing or straitning of the natural or usual course and pas- 

 sage of fish in their seasons * * * without allowance first 

 had and obtained from the General Sessions of the Peace in 

 the same country." This law, especially applied to such fishes 

 as run up the livers to spawn, salmon, shad and alewives. 

 The Indians, in their day, were wont to construct weirs and 

 the like obstructions to capture these fishes. But the Indians 

 were few and were idle and wandering. They took only what 

 was necessary for their present use. Now, however, had 

 come the white men, who put up permanent abodes and in- 

 creased in numbers, year by year. They were money makers, 

 who worked every day and all the day. They would catch 

 fish, not for themselves only, but to sell to strangers; and so 

 they have gone on ever since. Patucket Falls, on the Merri- 

 mac, where the Apostle Eliot spread his net of the gospel, now 

 furnishes the water power for the great manufacturing city of 

 Lowell. And Merry Mount, to-day the country seat of John 

 Quincy Adams, is a suburb of the metropolis of New England. 

 The inhabitants no longer "dunge their grounds with codd" 

 but are fain to buy that fish in the market at a round price 

 per pound. 



The river fish whose protection has cost most law-making in 

 the old commonwealth of Massachusetts is the humble alewife. 

 In contradiction of the proverb "mute as a fish" this one may 

 truly be said to have made a great deal of noise in the world. 

 Like some men they are small and humble, but persistent and 

 numerous. In the spring time the alewives stand in from the 

 sea, and push up the smaller fresh-water streams, seeking 

 ponds wherein to deposit their spawn. They come in great 

 armies and insist on entering those ponds. Nothing less than 

 a vertical wall six feet high will stop them. Amid the clatter 

 of mill wheels, and in the very face of the sweeping scoop net, 

 they force themselves through rapids, over falls, and by long 

 underground drains, regardless of them perishing comrades, 

 who by thousands fall a prey to the fishermen and to hawks 

 and eagles; or who run themselves ashore in their frantic 

 efforts to get on. It may be that only a few reach the spawn- 

 ing ground, and these are enough to keep up the race ; for one 

 female will lay a quarter of million of spawn. They are there- 

 fore par excellence domestic and cultivable fish and have been 

 so regarded in Massachusetts for generations. As early as 

 1741 there was passed "an act made to prevent the destruction 

 of the fish called alewives," wherein it was provided that any 

 owner of a dam "shall make a sufficient passageway for the 

 fish to pass up such river or stream, through or around such 

 dam." 



It is, however, not until 1790 that the alewife fishery of 

 Taunton Great River, first appears on the statute books, whose 

 pages it was destined to encumber. If very few of my hearers 

 know anything of Taunton Great River, the fact proves how 

 miserably our system of popular education fails to instruct 

 people concerning the most remarkable geographical features 

 of the land. Taunton Great River was doubtless named in 

 the spirit of contrary-mindedness already referred to as a 

 characteristic in our Puritan ancestors. The unregenerate 

 would be inclined to call it Taunton Small River, for it is a 

 small stream, w r hich heads in some ponds in the town of Lake- 

 ville, and after a short and quiet course empties into the sea at 

 Fall River. But not the mighty Mississippi itself bears on its 

 bosom so great a mass of legislation. The great and general 

 Court of Massachusetts invariably spends a portion of each 

 session in trying to regulate the fisheries of this stream. The 

 fishermen of the upper waters always complain that those of 

 the lower waters get all the alewives, while those of the lower 

 waters maintain that then rivals feloniously conspire to shut 

 the fish off from their spawning grounds. And when by some 

 special providence, both sets of fishermen are at peace with 

 one another, they invariably make a combined attack upon 

 the regulations of the StateFish Commissioners. The riparian 

 inhabitants of other alewife streams, although not so com- 

 bative, are quite as much interested as those of Taunton Great 

 River. Indeed it was in such waters that a sort of fishculture 

 first grew up. In some cases where a dam owner wished to 

 save his water power by shutting up his fishway, he would 

 agree to catch each year so many thousand alewives at the 

 foot of the dam and to convey them alive to the millpond 

 above, and thus to keep up the crop. And it has been the 

 custom for more than a century to regulate these little streams 

 by special acts which govern the public sale of the fish, the 

 days on which they may be netted and the fishways that are 

 to be kept open for then passage. The law goes often so far 

 into detail as to provide that each widow of the town shall 

 have a barrel full for nothing. I have dwelt thus long on this 

 humble fish because its successful culture gives encouragement 

 to attempt that of others more difficult. 



I shall follow briefly the decline of the fisheries in New Eng- 

 land, because it is there that an organized system of fishcul- 

 ture first in this country took its origin. That region has two 

 rivers of considerable ' size— the Connecticut and the Merri- 

 mac, Both rise in the cold streams of the White Mountains. 

 The Connecticut, flowing south, empties into Long Island 

 Sound, and the Merrlinac, by a southeasterly course, reaches 

 the Atlantic Ocean. A centuiy ago both rivers abounded in 

 shad, salmon and alewives. and would doubtless have con- 

 tinued for many years to give a fair yield, in spite of over 

 fishing, had it not been for the erection of impassable dams, 

 which were intended to give water power to the manufactur- 

 ers, or to furnish slack water navigation to lumber rafts. As 

 early as 1798 the Connecticut River was thus barred at a point 

 just within the northern limit of Massachusetts, but it was 

 not until 1847 that the Merriruac was in like manner shut off 

 by the great dam at Lawrence, in both cases the salmon, 

 stopped on their passage to the spawning grounds, became 

 extinct after a few years, while the shad and alewives. which 

 could be bred in the lower waters, continued annually to re- 

 visit these rivers. 



What happened on the Merrimac and Connecticut happened 

 equally on almost every lesser stream in that region. The 

 peopleof New England, lacking advantages for farming, turned 

 all their attention to manufacturing. Water power was then 

 much cheaper than steam, so that before long there rose a dam 

 wherever there was a fall great enough to turn a millw heel. 

 Except some simple trencher for the passage of alewives, no 



fishways were then known. The complete ignorance of this 

 subject may be illustrated by the great data twenty-sevell 

 feet high at Lawrence. The charter of the company per- 

 mitted the building of a dam, provided a pass were f urinshed 

 for salmon, which should be satisfactory to the Countv Com 

 missioners. Before the dam was finished a solemn council of 

 the best ichthyological and engineering talent was held to de- 

 termine what kind of pass would be suitable. The council 

 based its judgment apparently on the cheap woodcut in the 

 primary geographies of half a century ago, which represented 

 a salmon briskly leaping over falls at least fifty feet high, At 

 any rate, the salmon pass finally approved "by the learned 

 Commissioners consisted of a simple plank trough, sloping 

 from the crest to the foot of the dam, at an angle somewhat 

 steeper than forty-five degrees. It is needless to say that the 

 salmon declined to exhibit any of the feats of agility por- 

 traj^ed in the woodcut of the primary geography. 



There soon came to be a general feeling, and one under the 

 circumstances quite natural, that manufactures and fish 

 mutually excluded each other, and so things were allowed to 

 drift at then- pleasure. The streams that emptied into salt 

 water no longer furnished such abundant swarms of small fry 

 as had in former days served to toll the sea fishes toward the 

 land, while the passage of boats and steamers and the in- 

 crease of population and of fishing tended to destroy or scare 

 away the fish of the small bays and coves, The balance of 

 nature had thus been changed, and one part had reacted 

 against another. 



The steady dimunition would have gone iminterruptedly on 

 but for the revival of fishculture. 



The discovery of artificial impregnation of eggs is such a 

 simple one that the only wonder is that it was not practiced 

 long ago. Country boys who watch the brooks in autumn, 

 know how trout deposit "their eggs; and fishermen, after haul- 

 ing their seine ashore, are familiar with the spectacle of spawn 

 and milt flowing from the ripe fishes. It is more than likely 

 that many persons have in the past times practiced the ai ti- 

 ficial fecundation of ova. The process was described iu 1420 

 by Dom Pinehou, a monk of the abbey of Reoiue. It was re- 

 discovered by Jacobi, of Westphalia, in 1,768, and several 

 naturalists availed themselves of this method in their embryo- 

 logical researches. Among others, Louis Agassiz, who, in 

 1838, hatched the impregnated eggs of Swiss whitefish bv tying 

 them in a muslin bag and sinking it on the margin of the lake 

 of Neufchatel. 



In 1843, two fishermen of the Vosges, Joseph Remy and An- 

 toine Gehin, not only hatched a large number of trout, but de- 

 vised means of feeding them artificially. They succeeded in 

 stocking several water courses in them neighborhood with 

 these trout fry. Seven years later their results had become 

 known to the scientific men in Paris. Napoleon the Third 

 had already begun his elaborate measures for the material 

 aggrandizement of France and he took up fishculture and the 

 acclimatization of new animals among other schemes. He 

 disliked the professors of the Garden of Plants because of 

 then Orleamst sentiments, and he set up a rival under 

 the name of the Garden of Acclimatization, of which 

 fishculture was in some sort a branch. Its apostle 

 was Professor Coste. With large appropriations from 

 the central government he established at Huningue, near 

 the Swiss frontier, a large and elaborate station for fish- 

 culture. His enthusiasm was great. He estimated that 

 the yield of fresh-water fishes in France was not worth more 

 than §1,200,000 annually, which he was confident could be 

 raised by artificial fecundation to -$180,000,000. Like many 

 another inventor Prof. Coste was doomed to opposition and 

 disappointment. M. Rimbaud, Secretary of the Fishery Board 

 of Marseilles, ridiculed what he called the unnatural watereul- 

 ture. He said the machinery and labor for hatching and the 

 artificial food would cost more than the fish would come to. 

 He was not far from right. With plenty of money to work 

 with, it was not difficult to build hatcheries, dig ponds, setup 

 apparatus, and put in turbine wheels for pumping. The work- 

 ing of the establishment was more difficult. The spawn, col- 

 lected at distant points and sometimes iu a careless way, often 

 failed to hatch. The fry, carefully placed iu suitable pools, 

 disappeared iu a way considered mysterious, until it was dis^- 

 covered that several large pickerel' had found their way into 

 the pools. The eminent engineers of the pouts ef chausse~es 

 contended in vain with the waters of the Rhine, which some- 

 times backed up and flooded the pools and tanks, and anon re- 

 ceded, leaving the turbine wheels high and dry. Years rolled 

 on. and Prof. Coste was still struggling to make fish plenty in 

 France, when the Prussian armies crossed the Rhine and ap- 

 propriated Huningue to the use of the German Empire. 



All these disappointed hopes had not been quite in vain. 

 Many valuale experiments had been tried and precious infor- 

 mation published, and, above all, it had been discovered that 

 certain things could not be done. Meanwhile, knowledge of 

 these discoveries had crossed the Atlantic, and in L85SPx Theo- 

 datus Garlick hatched the artificially impregnated eggs of 

 trout. Three years later commissioners appointed by Massa- 

 chusetts published a valuable report on the general subject of 

 fishculture, and attempted unsuccessfully to hatch trout. In 

 the same year an admirable report on fisheries was written 

 by the eminent scholar, George P. Marsh, who had been 

 appointed a Commissioner by the State of New Hampshire. 



The true beginning of fishculture, however, under the aus- 

 pices of State governments, was in July, 1804, when New 

 Hampshire and Vermont passed legislative resolves calling on 

 Massachusetts to re-establish a free passage for migratory sea 

 fijh through the dams on the Connecticut and Merrmiae 

 rivers. To the late Judge Henry A. Bellows, of New Hamp- 

 shire, this country owes the successful beginning of the under- 

 taking. He was an advocate learned in the law and full of en- 

 thusiasm for the restoration of the former runs of salmon and 

 shad in the cool waters of the Pemigewasset and the broad ex- 

 panse of Lake Winnipiseogee. He appeared before a commit- 

 tee, of the Massachusetts Legislature, and by their recommen- 

 dation two commissioners were appointed, of whom I had the 

 honor to be one. This was in 1805. Within a year every New 

 England State was represented by Fishery Commissioners. 

 They were accustomed to assemble from time to time for i:he 

 discussion of their mutual interests. These modest gatherings, 

 whereat the assembled authorities failed not to test the excel- 

 lence of their own fish, were the prototypes of the national 

 gathering we celebrate this evening. 



The opening of the great dams by fishways led to several 

 important results. In the first place the. decision m the ease of 

 the Massachusetts Commissioners against the HoJyoko Water 

 Power Company has settled the law in regard to the lights of 

 migratory fishes in rivers, lids decision, which was confirmed 

 by the United States Supreme Court in 18TO, sets forth that a 

 river was a public way, and the passage of migratory fish in 

 it a public right. Therefore, whoever builds a dam across a 

 river must furnish a passage to its migratory fish unless ex- 

 pressly exempted by the Legislature, 



It thus became easy to open the streams, and hundreds of 

 owners of dams, who by adverse possession had considered 

 themselves safe from intrusion, now found themselves obliged 

 to construct fishways at their own expense. 



The second important step was also a legal one, tt was the 

 passage in 1809, by Massachusetts, of an act to encourage the 

 cultivation of useful fishes, which was intended to embody is 

 one law all necessary regulations. Before that time the fish- 

 ery laws of that State, to the number of nearly four hundred, 

 were for the most part special enactment-. The new status- 

 substituted genera) provisions. It established a board of 

 fishery commissioners, and gave them suitable power, gave to 

 the riparian proprietor the control of ponds not exceeding 

 twenty acres in extent, and regulated the times and men 

 of taking fish. 



In attempting to restock the Merrimac and Connecticut, the 

 most difficult prob! ■ 



