346 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Since the cars are usually towed by steam tugs at a speed of 6 or 8 miles per 
hour, the determination of the proper buoyancy at either end suitable for towing 
requires considerable judgment and experience. 
These cars are divided by a slat partition into two or more compartments, so 
that the fish will not all crowd together. Their capacity is from 6 to 10 tous of fish, 
dependent on the temperature and conditiou of the water. During warm weather, or 
when there is considerable sediment in the water, the tugs usually carry ice iu which 
the fish are packed iu preference to cariying them in the live-cars. 
The fishermen catching hogfish along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina 
usually transport them in live-cars to the marketing ports, and the same is true in a 
juimber of other minor fisheries of the coast. In the sea bass and tautog fisheries 
prosecuted on the southern coast of New England the fishermen occasionally use boat- 
shaped cars made of wood, sharp at both ends, with auger-holes in sides and bottom 
and with top covered with hinged lid. A common size is 5 feet long on top, 3 feet long 
on the bottom, which is flat, and 2 feet wide on top at the middle. 
Live-boxes are generally employed iu the eel fishery of Connecticut, Long Island, 
and other places on the Atlantic coast, but these conform to no established shape or 
size, suiting the convenience and needs of the individual fisherman. Several of the 
catfish fishermen of Philadelphia retain their catch for several days or even weeks by 
putting them in large boxes lined with tin, which are placed in their yards and kept 
covered over, the water being changed frequently. 
In this connection it may be well to describe the cars used in the Penobscot by the 
United States Fish Commission in transferring live salmon from the fishermen’s weirs 
to the retaining ponds, preparatory to stripping them of spawn for hatching purposes: 
The car employed is made from the common dory, divided transversely into three compartments. 
The central one, which is much the larger, is occupied hy the lish, and is smoothly lined with thin 
boards and covered with a net to prevent the fish jumping out or being lost by the car capsizing, 
which sometimes occurs, while to guard them from fright and the rays of the sun a canvas cover is 
drawn over all. 
The first cars of this form constructed had iron gratings to separate the central from the for- 
ward and after comimrtments, the water being admitted through the forward and discharged through 
the after compartment, but this was objectionable because the salmon were constantly seeking to 
escape through the forward grating, and often injured themselves by rushing against it. Smooth 
wooden gratings were afterwards used, and for many years cars were employed in which the 
compartments were separated by tight board partitions, the openings for the circiilation of water 
communicating through the sides of the boat directly with the fish compartment, and being, of 
course, grated. This was A ery satisfactory, but when it was found desirable and practicable to use 
ice iu transportation the forward compartment became the ice room, and it was necessary to perforate 
the partition again to admit the cold water to the fish. Finally, stout Avoolen blanket cloth was 
substituted in the partitions, with eyelet holes wrought in to aft’ord passage to the Avater. This is the 
form now in use, in which the water is admitted through openings in the sides to the ice room, 
from which it jAasses through the fish room to the after room, whence it is discharged. The car is 
ballasted so that the rail is just above Abater, or, in case of an unusually large load of fish, a little 
beloAV it. All the openings communicating with the outside are controlled by slides, which can be 
closed so as to let the car swim high and light when it is towed empty. 
To avoid injury to the fish in transferring them to the cars, fine minnow dip nets, lined with 
Avoolen llannel of open texture, are used. The bow on which the net is hung is 22 inches in diameter, 
and to secure a net of ample width three ordinary nets, 36 inches iu depth, are cut open down one side 
quite to the bottom, and then sewed together, giving thus three times the ordinary breadth without 
increasing the depth. 
The collection of salmon is begun each season usually from the 20th of May to the 1st of June, 
but as the maximum temperature tliat the fish fresh from the weirs will endure is about 75° F., the 
