Class __ SH ee & Book" ral HS - UNITED STATES COMMISSIONERS OF FISHERIES MARSHALL MCDONALD 1888-1895 G. Brown Goopr SPENCER F,. BairpD 1871-1887 GeorGE M. BOWERS 1898 to date Joun J. Bric Suternational Fishery Congress Washington, 1908 Che United States Bureau of Hisheries Sts Establishment, Functions, Organization, Resources, Operatinns, and Achievements Washington Government Printing Office 1908 \A U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR a SECRETARY OSCAR §. STRAUS ASSISTANT SECRETARY WILLIAM R. WHEELER & * BUREAU OF FISHERIES at COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES GEORGE M. BOWERS EXECUTIVE STAFF Deputy Commissioner - - - - HuGH M. SMITH Chief Clerk -— - - - - - - Irvine H. DuNLAP Chief, Division of Fish Culture - - JoHn W. TirTrcomMsB Chief, Division of Scientific Inquiry — - - BARTON W. EVERMANN Chief, Division of Statistics and Methods - ALVIN B. ALEXANDER Architect and Engineer - - - - HercTOR VON BAYER Superintendent, Car and Messenger Service - J. FRANK ELLs Accountant - - - - - - WILLIAM P. ‘TrrcomB OC] 30 190% | D. ot D, on CONTENDS Bad Tage ESTABLISHMENT AND FUNCTIONS - : - : : ¥ : : ss : c i 5 ORGANIZATION - - - - = - - = Z : : - 2 2 z 7 RESOURCES AND INVESTMENT - - : - - 2 = E 3 E z z i 9 CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FooD FISHES - : = - : = = z 10 GENERAL IMPORTANCE AND EXTENT - - = = : = - = é z 10 SPECIES CULTIVATED - - - - = = = 2 2 2 B é II HATCHERIES OPERATED - - - - E - 2 : < i 12 OuTPUT AND ITS DISTRIBUTION - - - - = : 2 e 2 E 23 POPULARITY OF THE WORK - - - = = - : 2 ‘ : 2 28 ScIENTIFIC INQUIRY - - = - = : s c : = 2 z s 30 STATISTICS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES - - - - : - - : = 36 ALASKA SALMON-INSPECTION SERVICE = = = - - - - - - 46 RELATIONS WITH THE STATES AND WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES - : - - - = 50 PUBLICATIONS - - - - = = = = = E - = : ‘ E 53 SoME RESULTS OF THE WORK - - : = 2 2 B z : = : 56 FIsH CULTURE - - - = = = 2 - = : = - = 56 ACCLIMATIZATION - . - = 2 = = : : = E 2 : 66 BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS - = = 2 = e 2 7 COMMERCIAL FISHERIES = - = = = = = 3 = : ; s 77 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES ITS ESTABLISHMENT, FUNCTIONS, ORGANIZATION, RESOURCES OPERATIONS, AND ACHIEVEMENTS a By HUGH M. SMITH Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries Bo ESTABLISHMENT AND FUNCTIONS RIOR TO 1871 there was no branch of the United States Government especially charged with the consideration of fishery affairs, although fishery questions of greater or less import, some domestic, some foreign, had been arising ever since the achievement of national independence. Several of the States had already established fish commissions, and there arose among the State fishery authorities and the members of the American Fish Cultural Association (now the American Fisheries Society) an urgent demand for a national bureau devoted to fishery interests. Congress was thus influenced to action, and in the year named passed a joint resolution creating the office of Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, whose duties were specified as follows: The commissioner of fish and fisheries shall prosecute investigations and inquiries on the subject, with the view of ascertaining whether any and what diminution in the number of the food-fishes of the coast and the lakes of the United States has taken place; and, if so, to what causes the same is due; and also whether any and what protective, prohibi- tory, or precautionary measures should be adopted in the premises; and shall report upon the same to Congress. It was further provided that the Commissioner should be a civil officer of the Government, of proved scientific and practical acquaintance with the fishes of the coast, who should serve without additional compensation. The man generally regarded as preeminently qualified for the new position was Spencer Fullerton Baird, then Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who received the appointment, at once entered on his duties, and continued the efficient and highly respected head of the Commission until his death, in 1887. Professor Baird was succeeded by one of his ablest assistants, Dr. George Brown Goode, eminent as administrator, ichthyologist, and fishery expert, who, 5 6 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES however, voluntarily relinquished the Commissionership after less than a year’s incumbency in order to devote his entire time to the National Museum, of which he was Director. Next came Commissioner McDonald, practical fish-culturist and inventor of important mechanical appliances now used in the hatching of fish all over the world, who served until his death, in 1895, and was the first salaried Commissioner. He was followed by Capt. John J. Brice, a retired naval officer, who held the office for two years and was succeeded in 1898 by the present Commissioner, Hon. George Meade Bowers, under whose ten years’ administration the service has grown in all its branches. MEMORIAL TO COMMISSIONER BAIRD This granite bowlder with bronze tablet in honor of the first United States Commissioner of Fisheries was placed at the Woods Hole station in 1902 by the American Fisheries Society, “in recognition of his inestimable services to ichthyology, pisciculture, and the commercial fisheries.” From the very outset of its career, the fishery service has had the active support and cooperation of many of the leading biologists, fish-culturists, and fishery experts of the country, whose volunteer assistance has been an important factor in its development and efficiency. ‘The early years of the Bureau were devoted to an active investigation of the condition of the fisheries of the Atlantic coast, Great Lakes, and other sections; to studies of the interior and coastal waters and their inhabitants, and to exploration of the offshore fishing banks. ‘The cultivation of useful fishes was soon taken up throughout the country, and quickly attained large proportions. The natural expansion of the work was materially augmented from time to time by acts of Congress, and in ORGANIZATION 7 a comparatively short time the operations came to have a very wide scope. In more recent years the work has been still further extended, so that at present there is scarcely a phase of aquiculture, of the fishing industry, or of biological and physical science as connected with the waters that does not come within the purview of the Bureau. For many years the Bureau was without any executive control in fishery affairs. Under the Constitution the States legislate for themselves in such matters and the Federal Government has assumed no jurisdiction. ‘The Bureau thus had no direct voice in the making or enforcing of any measures for the protection or preservation of aquatic animals, and its position, compared with the fishery service of other countries, was anomalous. In its advisory capacity, however, the Bureau has acquired an influence upon fishery legislation, and has now been given executive powers in Alaska for the enforce- ment of a comprehensive code of laws affecting the salmon fisheries. In the interests of the fur-seal fisheries the Bureau has since 1893 been called on to study the life history and migrations of the seals, to inspect conditions on the islands, and to submit recommendations concerning the killing of the animals. ORGANIZATION Until 1903 the Bureau was known as the “United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries,’ and was an independent institution of the Government, responsible directly to Congress. In that year it was included in the new Department of Commerce and Labor, becoming the United States Bureau of Fisheries, as known at present. The work at the outset naturally fell under the three general heads of scientific investigation, fishery inquiry, and fish-culture. This classification has been extended and perfected, and enters into the organization at the present time. The permanent personnel of the service includes 325 persons, of whom 83 are on duty in Washington and 242 are at outside stations, at laboratories, and on vessels. The officials under the Commissioner are a Deputy Commissioner, a chief clerk, and a chief of each of the three divisions before referred to. AlJ subordinates are appointed, after passing the prescribed examinations, from the registers maintained by the Civil Service’ Commission. The Deputy Commissioner is the executive next to the Commissioner, and acts with full powers in the latter’s absence. The Commissioner’s office, which represents the administrative division of the Bureau and has the chief clerk at its head, has under it the accounting office, the office of the architect and engi- neer, and the office of vessels, in addition to the library, records, correspondence, and property. In this division there is a technical and clerical force of 18 persons, not including messengers, watchmen, janitors, engineers, firemen, and laborers, and the 34 civil employees in the vessel service. 8 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES The Chief of the Division of Fish Culture, with an office force of 7, directs the operations at the hatcheries and the planting of fish. Each hatchery has a force consisting of a superintendent, fish-culturist, skilled laborers, etc., the number of employees for all the stations reaching a total of 168. In addition to these there are 13 superintendents, fish-culturists, and other employees at large. During the busy seasons the hatchery force is increased by the temporary employment of many spawn-takers and laborers as the work requires. For the distribution of eggs and young fish there are 6 transportation cars permanently a = \ | LE Ria HEADQUARTERS OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES, WASHINGTON, D. C © provided with crews of messengers, numbering in all 26 men. The car and messenger service is under the immediate direction of a superintendent. The Division of Scientific Inquiry includes besides its chief 6 scientific assistants and a number of clerks. Three special agents are employed in the Alaska inspection service, which is under this division, and 3 persons are per- manently employed at the biological laboratory at Beaufort, North Carolina. Numerous investigators and assistants are also employed temporarily as needed for the study of special problems at the laboratories and in the field. RESOURCES AND INVESTMENT 9 RESOURCES AND INVESTMENT The only funds available for the operation of the Bureau are the moneys voted annually by Congress. The comparatively large sums collected yearly in the Alaska salmon-inspection service are covered intact into the Treasury. From its very modest beginning, with $5,000 allowed for its work, the Bureau has won such recognition from Congress that the appropriations for its main- tenance have increased steadily, and for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, tgog, reached the substantial amount of $803,920, apportioned as follows: Administration: Salt CS eee Nee eee Nene RAS er ae ep 8 a Se TL $45, 380 MiScellaneousiexpemsesss epee ne 2s ns ee SM eee ae, eats = 8 8, 000 Propagation of food fishes: Salaries— Oia eae ee a as oe ee Oe se URIS gd Ps 11, 820 Stanloustanduneldusenyi cesses ses he ree eee eee ok . 156; 420 Car and messenger service_______ Pe ees aay ee 5 ao ee shh =) 235,100 Wie galarngoms, G.qnareese ss SUSE ws Seas eee es SA be Wea 56 OOO Inquiry respecting food fishes: Salaries— OM cea eee eee a an ye er tee SR TE I See La O4O Biologicalistationyateh eattort yNpy Ca e== 9 ame see ee ee fobs 2, 700 MiscelaneoustexpenSessass sestam ine ae = ay ann yews mee ES 301000 Statistical inquiry: Syria is te a ere Sa SP ce 17, 140 Miscellaneousiexpensess-ss sre sme ne ee aye ee 7, 500 Vessel service: KS AN SETS ee a a Op ae a 29, 420 MascellaneousrexpenSes waa! = eee ae Reena eae Los Ye a es 222) FOO Alaska salmon-inspection service (salaries _-_--_____________________=_--- ay 6, 300 Special: Establishment of station for propagation of fresh-water mussels in Mississippi WN Se eer se a a a cee eee 25, 000 Construction of new steam vessel for Alaska service.-____________ : _ 20, 000 Imiprovements;andi repairs atstationse ee ee asec, | Avil FCO) NepaltsoOrsteamen Al batrosse= === => = sae eee ENTE 2) = ar EE Beals 18, 000 Woe et Use coo ae eee ae ee ee ae. eee 803, 920 The land owned and occupied by the Bureau at its fish-cultural and bio- logical stations has an aggregate area of over 12,000 acres, with a value of $240,000. The improvements and equipments at these stations represent an investment of more than $1,000,000. Other property of the Bureau includes 4 seagoing steam and sail vessels, 20 steam launches, and 150 small sail, power, and row boats, which, with equipment, have a value of $300,000. Its 6 fish- transportation cars are valued at $45,000. The aggregate investment of the Federal Government in property devoted to the fishery service is thus about $1,585,000. IO THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES The artificial propagation of fishes was not contemplated at the time the Bureau was formed, but was instituted by an act of Congress in 1872 at the instigation of the American Fish Cultural Association, which had been organized two years before and had taken a leading part in the establishment of the Bureau. ‘The fishes to which attention was given first were the shad, the Atlantic salmon, and the whitefish. This work proved so popular that it was extended annually, was supplemented by efforts in acclimatization, and soon overshadowed all other branches. The Bureau has labored to make its operations commensurate with the extent of the fisheries in public waters, and with the inevitable exhaustion of the native fish life in the smaller lakes and streams incident to the development of the country and the increase of population. The policy, as enunciated by Doctor Goode, has been to carry out the idea that it is better to expend a small amount of public money in making fish so abundant that they can be caught without restriction and serve as cheap food for the people at large than to expend a much larger sum in preventing the people from catching the few fish that still remain after generations of improvidence. From this standpoint it is perhaps fortunate that up to the present the Bureau has not had to devote its major energies to the formulation and enforce- ment of fishery legislation, but has been able to work directly for the increase of fish life. Public or Government fish-culture has in America attained tre- mendous proportions, and exceeds in extent and importance that of all other countries combined. However, the neglect of some of the States to provide the minimum protection to certain species inhabiting interstate and inter- national waters has not only negatived the fish-cultural work of the Bureau and of the States themselves, but has practically inhibited it by preventing the possibility of securing an adequate supply of eggs, thus making desirable and necessary the institution of a new policy placing interstate and international waters under the jurisdiction of the General Government. In the work of the Bureau of Fisheries the United States Government has an especial and unique claim to the epithet “paternal.” The stocking of waters with food fishes is a direct benefit to the public, not only increasing the very material that supports an enormous industry, but providing food itself for the individual who will use his hook and line. From year to year, as the importance of the work has become increasingly evident, additional hatcheries have been built, the capacity of existing hatcheries has been enlarged, the scale of the operations has been extended, new kinds of fishes have been added to the output, and new sections have been brought under the direct influence of the work. General Importance and Extent CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES II At the end of the first ten years of the Bureau’s existence the fishes that were being regularly cultivated were shad, carp, chinook salmon, Atlantic salmon, landlocked sal- mon, rainbow trout, brook trout, and whitefish, in addition to which the propa- gation of several others had been undertaken experimentally. The list now is six times as long, and the annual output is ten times the aggregate for the ten- year period ended in 1881. The main energies are devoted to the important commercial fishes—shad, whitefish, lake trout, Pacific salmons, white perch, yellow perch, cod, flatfish—and the lobster, which are hatched in lots of many millions annually. More widely popular, however, are the distributions of the fishes of the interior waters which are generally classed as game fishes. Although representing only about 10 per cent of the output of the hatcheries, this feature of the work is very important, for it supplies choice kinds of fish for public rivers, lakes, and ponds, and for fishing preserves and private ponds and streams in all parts of the United States. The fishes most in demand for these purposes are the landlocked salmon, the different species of trout, the grayling, the basses, the crappies, the sunfishes, and the catfishes, but various others are also handled. Following is a classified list of the native fishes artificially propagated during 1908: The Species Cultivated THE CATFISHES (SILURIDA): Spotted cat, blue cat, channel cat (/ctalurus punctatus). Horned pout, bullhead, yellow cat (Amezurus nebulosus). Marbled cat (Amezurus nebulosus marmoratus). THE SHADS AND HERRINGS (CLUPEIDA): Shad (Alosa sapidissima). THE SALMONS, TROUTS, WHITEFISHES, ETC. (SALMONID A): Common whitefish (Coregonus clupeijormis). Lake herring, cisco (Argyrosomus arted?). Chinook salmon, king salmon, quinnat salmon (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha). Silver salmon, coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch). Blueback salmon, redfish, sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka). Humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). Steelhead (Salmo gairdnert). Rainbow trout (Salmo irideus). Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Landlocked salmon (Salmo sebago). Yellowstone Lake trout, cut-throat trout, black-spotted trout (Salmo lewist). Colorado River trout, black-spotted trout (Salmo pleuriticus). Golden trout (Salmo rooseveltz). Lake trout, Mackinaw trout, longe, togue (Cristivomer namaycush). Brook trout, speckled trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Sunapee trout (Salvelinus aureolus). Canadian red trout (Salvelinus marstont). Hybrid trout (Salvelinus aureolus + fontinalis). THE GRAYLINGS (THYMALLID)): Montana grayling (Thymallus montanus). THE BASSES, SUNFISHES, AND CRAPPIES (CENTRARCHIDAS): Crappy (Pomoxts annularis). Strawberry bass, calico bass (Pomoxis sparoides). 12 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES THE BASSES, SUNFISHES, AND CRAPPIES (CENTRARCHIDA)—Continued. Rock bass, red-eye, goggle-eye (Ambloplites rupestris). Warmouth, goggle-eye (Chenobryttus gulosus). Small-mouth black bass (Mzicropterus dolomieu). Large-mouth black bass (Mzcropterus salmozdes). Bluegill sunfish (Lepomis pallidus). THE PERCHES (PERCIDA:): Pike perch, wall-eyed pike, yellow pike, blue pike (St:zostedion vitreum). Yellow perch (Perca jlavescens). THE SEA BASSES (SERRANIDA:): Striped bass, rockfish (Roccus lineatus). White bass (Roccus chrysops). White perch (Morone americana). Yellow bass (Morone interrupta). THE DRUMS (SCIajNIDA‘): Fresh-water drum (A plodinotus grunniens). THE LABRIDS (LABRIDA): Tautog, blackfish (Tautoga onztis). THE cops (GApID«): Cod (Gadus callarias). Pollock (Pollachius virens). Haddock (Melanogrammus eglifinus). ‘THE FLOUNDERS (PLEURONECTIDA:): Winter flounder, American flatfish (Pseudopleuronectes americanus). CRUSTACEANS: American lobster (Homarus americanus). In addition to the foregoing, various kinds of fishes are obtained from the overflows in the Mississippi Valley and are distributed. Among these are the ° small-mouth buffalo-fish ([ctiobus bubalus), the pike (Esox lucius), the pickerel (Esox reticulatus), and several sunfishes (chiefly Eupomotis gibbosus). From this same source are also collected large numbers of large-mouth black bass, crappies, rock bass, and bluegill sunfish. The following introduced species are cultivated to a limited extent: Carp (Cyprinus carpio). Propagated chiefly for food for other fishes. Goldfish (Carassius auratus). Propagated for ornamental purposes. Tench (Tinca tinca). Cultivated varieties, green tench and golden tench; propagated for ornamental purposes. Ide (Leuciscus tidus). Cultivated variety, golden ide; propagated for ornamental purposes. European sea trout (Salmo trutta). Loch Leven trout (Salmo trutta levenensis). Fish-cultural stations are established by special act of Congress, and their : location and construction are determined by the The Hatcheries Operated y Se Bureau after a careful survey of the available sites in a given State. The plans and specifications for each station are prepared in the office of the architect and engineer: with reference to the nature of the operations to be conducted and the topographical conditions, and the work of constructing buildings and ponds is usually done by contract. Sometimes, however, the Bureau takes direct charge of construction, as in the case of the salmon hatcheries in Alaska. CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 13 The usual buildings at a fish-cultural station are the hatchery proper, a residence for the superintendent and his family, and necessary outbuildings. At some stations there may be also power house, foreman’s or fish-culturist’s dwelling, mess hall, and stable. The superintendent’s and other quarters are furnished gratis, but station employees provide their own subsistence. All sections of the country are now familiar with Government fish-cultural work. In addition to the regular hatcheries, with their permanent personnel _and living quarters, there are maintained numerous auxiliary hatcheries oy SUPERINTENDENT’S RESIDENCE AT A NEW ENGLAND TROUT-HATCHING STATION substations which from the nature of their work do not require a permanent force and are therefore, for economic and administrative considerations, operated as adjuncts of nearby hatcheries. Some of the auxiliary stations, however, have more extensive operations than the hatcheries with which they are con- nected, and such will doubtless in time be made regular stations. ‘There is also another class of stations, known as field or collecting stations, which serve as temporary headquarters for parties engaged in obtaining eggs from wild fishes. In 1908 the fish-cultural work was conducted in 27 States and Terri- tories at 55 hatcheries and subhatcheries and 64 field stations. VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE GLOUCESTER HATCHERY Showing automatic tidal boxes in which buoyant ova are incubated. CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 15 While marine operations have been conducted from time to time at various places on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, and have been addressed toa large number of species, the only permanent marine hatcheries are in Maine and Massachusetts, with the species handled at each as indicated in the following table. The places shown under each station are the centers of egg- collecting operations. Other sea fishes that have in previous years been arti- ficially propagated and may again come under the hand of the fish-culturist are the haddock, the scuppaug, the sheepshead, the sea bass, the mackerel, and the squeteague, some of which were hatched on the steamer Fish Hawk in Chesapeake Bay and Florida. MARINE HATCHERIES. LOCATION. SPECIES HANDLED. Boothbay Harbor, Me__----- 55 Cod, lobster. Pemaquid, Me_____ See = See) obster: Portland, Me__---- er 4 zt t Lobster. Ritter Lomt, Mes =--25--s== as | Lobster. Gloucester) Mass: == ==) ===. ae aoe eee oe | Cod, pollock, flatfish, lobster. BevenlyaMasses= a5 59 ee SZ +_-=-| Lobster. iBostons Massi==2. saa i a mt | Lobster. GobassetiWassei= =o cr =. Fa ees SS. | sLopster: eR MaSSSaee = ae eee eS : z Lobster. Wigueloelareeiel, MIAIRS 32 oS ee = 522 -|| Wolsey | Plymouth Masses 08 soe ee te eS ES Ree Corel | | Portsmouth Nee oe ee ee en | le bSter: | | ROGEpoLiaiMassea= aaa a ae ee es eee Se obster. Woods Hole, Mass__-_._____- 5 A ____._, Cod, tautog, flatfish, lobster. @hilmanken Masse ca arse ee ec é Lobster. | Dartmouth, Mass_______ Set eS = Lobster. | BastGreenwich Re lees eee eens ae Flatfish. Gay Head, Mass__-___-__- Pee es eas Lobster. * Gosnold) Massi22= = a2 22 a eh ce Lobster. Wantiicket Mass = sao = ieee. NA ES Stree Lobster. bymottthie asses sane eee = Bese lod: Stave ipptel nie Js Gis eee | eopster: Waquoit, Mass___-...-_- A Be poy Oe | Flatfish. Westport, Mass_____.-_- 212 eee ae Lobster. | Wrestiitish um lWasSi--see ee 8 eee Lobster. | Wanmomthe i lass2=—5 2. o=- 2 Ee oo eee Lobster. The fish-cultural work on the eastern coast streams was centered at 6 hatcheries and subhatcheries in 1908. At 1 of these the principal species handled is the Atlantic salmon, at 4 the shad, at 3 the yellow perch, at 2 SHAD-HATCHING STATION ON ALBEMARLE SOUND, NORTH CAROLINA The recent passage by the State legislature of laws reducing the obstruction by nets in the waters through which the shad must run to reach their spawning grounds has made it possible for this station again to collect large numbers of eggs from fish caught for market, and practically to insure the perpetuation of a fishery that had previously been threatened with speedy extinction. SHAD HATCHERY AT BATTERY ISLAND, MARYLAND Situated at mouth of Susquehanna River, and one of the oldest and most successful hatcheries for shad. White perch and yellow perch also are hatched at this point. CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 9/ the white perch, and at 1 the striped bass. In recent years the Bureau has operated a shad hatchery on the Delaware River, and has detailed the steamer Fish Hawk for shad hatching in Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida. The Central Station, in Washington, is operated largely for ex- INTERIOR OF SHAD HATCHERY AT BATTERY ISLAND, MARYLAND perimental and exhibition purposes, but sometimes receives large numbers of eggs from the adjacent river stations, especially when the latter are overstocked. HATCHERIES ON East Coast RIVERS. LOCATION. FISHES HANDLED. Craig Brook, Penobscot River, Me______--_------_-- Atlantic salmon, landlocked salmon, hump- back salmon, brook trout. Staceyville, Upper Penobscot River, Me________| Atlantic salmon. Havre de Grace, Susquehanna River, Md___________| Shad, yellow perch, white perch. Bryans Point, Potomac River, Md_ fea Sae ee oe Shad, yellow perch. Edenton, Albemarle Sound, N. C ES neh ee Shad. Weldon, Roanoke River, N. C_ See ___| Striped bass. ‘s Washington, D. C., Potomac River- _....---.-.-| Shad, yellow perch, white perch, etc. 2 55778 —08 18 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES In order to counteract the effect of the very exhausting fisheries of the Great Lakes, the Government has maintained hatcheries for many years, and in 1908 operated 6 belonging to the United States and 2 belonging to the State of Michigan. ‘The fishes to which attention is given are those which enter most HATCHERY AT NORTHVILLE, MICHIGAN The principal station for lake trout; also operated for brook trout and small-mouth black bass. largely into the catch of the fishermen, namely, the whitefish, cisco, lake trout, and pike perch, the annual output of which now exceeds 1% billions. Under arrangement with the Canadian authorities, 2 egg-collecting stations for white- fish, cisco, and lake trout are maintained at points in Ontario. CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 19 HATCHERIES ON THE GREAT LAKES. LOCATION. FISHES HANDLED. CapenVancent, Make/@Ontarioy N.) Yscssac= ose = Whitefish, lake trout, brook trout, steel- head, landlocked salmon, pike perch, yellow perch. Put-in Bay, Lake Erie, Ohio_______ Whitefish, lake cisco, lake trout, pike perch. Kelleys Island, Ohio @___ : Whitefish. | Middle Bass Island, Ohio @_____ _...._| Whitefish. Monroe Piers, Mich.@___-_-_- _.....| Whitefish, pike perch. North Bass Island, Ohio @_________ _..-------| Whitefish, lake cisco. Pelee Island, Ontario (Canada) @___ 2 Spee | Whitefish, lake cisco. Port Clinton; Ohio|@=__~_-_-____-_____-_______| Whitefish; lake'cisco, pike perch. Toledo; Ohio G._ = 25 22 2h wat ee Ss _| Pike perch. Northville, Mich.6____________ Be ee eee | PW akentroutetc, Alpena, Lake Huron, Mich____- _______| Whitefish, lake trout. | Beaver Island, Lake Michigan, Mich.¢___________| Lake trout. | Charlevoix, Lake Michigan, Mich_______________| Whitefish, lake trout. Detroit, Detroit River, Mich. ¢__ __.| Whitefish, pike perch. AlsonacsWake Enron Mich ass 22255 2s a Pike perch. | Bay City, Lake Huron, Mich.@_________ pe see Pikesperch: Belle Isle, Detroit River, Mich.¢________________| Whitefish. Grassy Isle, Detroit River, Mich.¢______ __.| Whitefish. Sault Ste. Marie, St. Marys River, Mich.c._----_ = | Whitefish, lake trout. Duluth Wake! Superior, Minne = —- 22220 2 ee | Whitefish, lake trout, pike perch, etc. Tslepvovale Vii ch: Gs eae ey eee ese eo to eee | Lake trout. Keweenaw Point, Mich.@_____ : oe ute Lake trout. Marquette, Mich.¢_________ Sie ae ene | Lake trout. Ontonagon, Mich.¢________ : ae eel vake trout: Rossport, Ontario (Canada) @_____________ _.| Lake trout. | “Egeg-collecting stations. » Interior station, headquarters of the fish-cultural work in Michigan, conveniently located, and place where most of the lake-trout eggs are hatched. ¢ Hatcheries belonging to State of Michigan, leased by Bureau of Fisheries. The hatcheries on the rivers and lakes of the Pacific coast region are devoted almost exclusively to the various salmons. In California, where the Bureau established a salmon hatchery as early as 1872, there is one central or main station, at Baird, on the McCloud River, with important collecting and eyeing stations on two other tributaries of the Sacramento. In Oregon a central hatchery at Oregon City, on the Willamette River, has 3 subhatcheries on tributaries of the Columbia in Oregon and Washington, and 3 subhatcheries on tributaries of the Rogue River, Oregon, in addition to several egg-collecting stations. The interests of the large salmon fisheries of the Puget Sound region are safeguarded by a hatchery on Baker Lake, on the Skagit River, Washington, 20 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES with animportant auxiliary at Birdsview. ‘The two latest additions to the western salmon hatcheries are at Yes Bay and Afognak, in Alaska, at which points immense numbers of blueback or sockeye salmon are now being put forth. A significant feature of artificial propagation on the Pacific seaboard is that in the Columbia basin the hatching of the acclimatized shad has begun on a small scale, and in the Sacramento basin the cultivation of the acclimatized striped bass has commenced under conditions which indicate that more eggs of this species may be obtained in California than in any of the States to which the fish is native. HATCHERIES ON THE Paciric COAST STREAMS AND LAKES. LOCATION. TisHeS HANDLED. Baird, Sacramento River, Cal Chinook salmon. Battle Creek, Cal.4 Chinook salmon. Bouldin Island, Cal Striped bass. Mill Creek, Cal.¢ Chinook salmon. Yreka, Sacramento River, Cal.0____ Rainbow trout. Baker Lake Wash: --¢--. 222-4 ee ea) Chinook salmon, blueback salmon, hump- back salmon, silver salmon. Birdsview, Wash oy p= Pe se Chinook salmon, blueback salmon, hump- back salmon, silver salmon, steelhead trout. Oregon City, Willamette River, Oreg__--_____-_-- _. Chinook salmon, silver salmon, steelhead trout, etc. Big White Salmon, Columbia River, Wash_- Chinook salmon. Eagle and ‘Tanner creeks, Columbia River, Chinook salmon. Oreg.@ Eagle Creek, Clackamas River, Oreg.b_______ Steelhead trout. Little White Salmon, Columbia River, Wash_- Chinook salmon. Rogue River, Oreg-_._----- __________. Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, silver salmon. Applegate Creek, Oreg._ _______ Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, silver salmon. Findley Eddy, Rogue River, Oreg Chinook salmon, silver salmon. Illinois River, Rogue River, Oreg < Chinook salmon, steelhead trout. Willamette Falls, Willamette River, Oreg Shad. Yes Bay, Yes Lake, Alaska_____- Blueback salmon. Afognak, Afognak Island, Alaska. ..___-__-_-- Blueback salmon. «Stations where eggs are collected and eyed. b Collecting stations. The hatcheries in the interior regions constitute the most numerous class, and their output reaches the largest number of people. Their operations are addressed chiefly to the so-called ‘‘ game” fishes, which, while caught mostly by anglers, nevertheless constitute an important element of the food supply. At these stations large numbers of fish are reared to the fingerling or yearling sizes CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 2k before being released; for this purpose more or less extensive pond areas are required. A peculiar kind of station which is included in this general class is that devoted to the collection of fishes of various kinds obtained from the over- flows in the upper Mississippi Valley. In the lowlands along the streams in this region the spring floods receding leave disconnected sloughs and pools, which either become dry during the summer or, if they remain until the winter, freeze ARTIFICIAL SPAWNING POND AND RACEWAY Used in culture of rainbow trout at the Wytheville, Virginia, station. solid, and the immense numbers of bass, crappy, and other desirable species therein are lost in the ordinary course of events. By seining these waters the Bureau thus obtains large numbers of fish that would otherwise perish, returning some of them to their native streams and distributing others to adjacent waters. In the autumn of 1908 six cars were employed in moving the fishes thus rescued. The following table, giving the interior fish-cultural stations and their auxil- iaries, shows that in 1908 there were operated 23 of these stations and substations 22 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES where hatching operations were conducted and 21 others where eggs or fish were simply collected: HATCHERIES IN INTERIOR STATES. LOCATION. Bozeman, Mont- Redrock, Mont_ Bullochville, Ga____ Erwin, Tenn__- Green Lake, Me Branch Pond, Me Grand Lake Stream, Me__ Leadville, Colo_ Cheesman Lake, Colo.@ Darrah, Colo.@ Edith Lake, Colo.@ _____ Eldora Lake, Colo.@ Englebrecht Lake, Colo.¢ ____ Grand Lake, Colo___-_--- Grand Mesa Lakes, Colo- Musgrove Lake, Colo.@ _ Ridgway Lake, Colo.@ _ Twin Lakes, Colo.@ _ Wellington Lake, Colo.¢ Zoeble Lake, Colo.@ ____ Mammoth Spring, Ark________- Manchester, Iowa - Bellevue, Iowa _ Tay Crosse; Wiasil 22a oe eee ees North McGregor, Iowa } Nashua, N. H Cumberland Center, N. H.¢ _________-_- Lake Sunapee, N. H.@ « Stations for the collection of eggs + Stations for the rescue of young and adult fishe FISHES HANDLED. Brook trout, rainbow trout, black-spotted trout, golden trout, steelhead trout, landlocked salmon. Grayling. Black basses, sunfishes, rock bass, catfish, etc. Black basses, sunfishes, rock bass, yellow perch, rain- bow and brook trouts, catfish, and minor species. Landlocked salmon, brook trout. Landlocked salmon, brook trout. Landlocked salmon, brook trout. Rainbow trout, golden trout, black-spotted trout, brook trout, landlocked salmon, grayling. Rainbow trout. Brook trout. Brook trout. Brook trout. Brook trout. Black-spotted trout. Black-spotted trout, rainbow trout, brook trout. Brook trout. Brook trout, rainbow trout. Brook trout. Brook trout. Brook trout. _.| Black basses, rock bass. Black basses, crappies, sunfishes, rock bass, pike perch, yellow perch, brook trout, lake trout, rain- bow trout, black-spotted trout, catfish: Large-mouth black bass, crappies, sunfishes, yellow perch, fresh-water drum, buffalo-fish, catfish. Large-mouth black bass, crappies, sunfishes, rock bass, yellow perch, white bass, pike, buffalo-fish, catfish. Large-mouth black bass, crappies, sunfishes, yellow perch, drum, pike, buffalo-fish, catfish. Lake trout, brook trout, Sunapee trout, rainbow trout, hybrid trout, landlocked salmon, chinook salmon, small-mouth black bass. Brook trout. | Brook trout, Sunapee trout. s from overflowed lands of Mississippi River and tributaries. e¢ Stations where eggs are collected and eyed but not hatched. CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 23 HATCHERIES IN INTERIOR STATES—Continued. LocaTIONn. | FISHES HANDLED. WR NEOSHOM MO == ees a Seo at = | Black basses, crappies, sunfishes, rock bass, rainbow | trout. | | | Northville, Mich.“ Brook trout, Loch Leven trout, steelhead trout, small-mouth black bass, and minor species. Quincey, Wh = - ___| Pike perch, black bass, and minor species. Meredosia, Ill.o______- _........_| Large-mouth black bass, crappies, sunfishes, pike perch, yellow perch, catfish, and minor species. St. Johnsbury, Vt_-_-_- ‘ ___________| Small-mouth black bass, landlocked salmon, steel- | head trout, lake trout, brook trout. Arlington, Vt_____- Sys ee ee eee ) Brook trout. Chittenden, Vt.¢ _ Se es ae | Brook trout. Darling Pond, Vt.¢ _._.-| Brook trout. Lake Mansfield, Vt.¢ ____ ee |) Brookatrouts Lake Mitchell, Vt.c ___ _ 932 13, 774, 646 bea Sati 3s 69, 958, 305 oo ee oe ee 7,185, 748 59, 000 1,515, 871 2, 713, 600 3,797; 250 30, 003 2, 109, 517 151, 526 782, 807 I, 442, 376 6, 441, 296 55,012 55, 012 3, 182, 080 31, 183, 158 3, 471, 292 II, 251, 740 en ee ae 191, 736 I, 247, 000 17,550 17,559 200, 268 200, 268 25,090 25, 090 1, 638 1, 638 78, 940 331i, 252 588, 047 611, 947 202, 810 202, 810 1a = hake ieee 412, 163, 000 68, 045 384, 724, 043 -------+----- 4; 333, 500 Ake ee eee 327, 410, 000 500 500 26, 000 26, 000 Prep ee dl SES I> 238, 365, 000 Se aos Z 66, 454, 000 =e aa 794, 000 ps eee ee 389, 642, 000 Torr 180, 933, OI1 2, 398, 886, 257 14, 922, 968 2, 871, 456, 380 CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 2 nA While the Bureau does not lay undue stress on mere numbers and con- siders the vitality of the fish and the conditions under which they are planted as of paramount importance, the foregoing figures are certainly very suggestive; and as a further statement of the magnitude of the fish-cultural work it may be of interest to record that the aggregate output of the hatcheries from 1872 to 1908 was about 22,365,200,000, of which about 10,341,700,000 represents the work of the past five years. BUILDINGS AND REARING PONDS OF TROUT STATION AT SPEARFISH, SOUTH DAKOTA The first consideration in the distribution of fishes is to make ample return to the waters from which eggs or fish have been collected. The remainder of the product is consigned to suitable public or private waters. All applications for fish for private waters and many of those for public streams and lakes are transmitted through and receive the indorsement of a United States Senator or Representative. The fish are carried to their destination in railroad cars or by messengers who accompany the shipments in baggage cars. During the fiscal year 1907 the Bureau received 6,346 applications for fish, nearly all for game species. The demand, especially for the basses, crappies, and catfishes, is greater than can be met with present resources. 26 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES The supply of particular fishes available for distribution, and consequently the number allotted to individual applicants, is largely determined by the differ- ence in methods of hatching the different species and the present facilities therefor. The area and character of the water to be stocked must likewise be considered. The water area that would receive a million pike perch fry would perhaps be assigned no more than 200 or 300 black bass 3 or 4 inches long, or four to eight times that many if the bass were planted as fry. The explanation is in the fact that pike perch can be propagated by the hundred million, while INTERIOR OF AJTYPICALETROUT_HATCHERY black bass, hatched by other methods or collected from overflowed lands, can be produced only in comparatively small numbers. The Bureau does not attempt to assign any applicant more than a liberal brood stock of the basses or sunfishes. With brook trout, which are distributed both as fry and finger- lings, allotments of fry are many times larger than allotments of fingerlings 3 to 4 inches long. Fishes are distributed at various stages of development, according to the species, the numbers in the hatcheries, and the facilities for rearing. The com- CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 27 mercial fishes, hatched in lots of many millions, are necessarily planted as fry. It is customary to distribute them just before the umbilical sac is completely absorbed. Atlantic salmon, land-locked salmon, and various species of trout, in such numbers as the hatchery facilities permit, are reared to fingerlings from 1 to 6 inches in length; the remainder are distributed as fry... The basses and sunfishes are distributed from the fish-cultural stations and ponds from some three weeks after they are hatched until they are several months of age. A FISH TRANSPORTATION CAR Six cars of this kind are in constant use by the Bureau. Live fish are carried safely for long distances, and eggs may be incubated while on trains traveling 60 miles an hour. When the last lots are shipped the basses usually range from 4 to 6 inches and the sunfishes from 2 to 4 inches in length. The numerous fishes collected in overflowed lands—hasses, crappie, sunfishes, catfishes, yellow perch, and others— are 2 to 6 inches in length when taken and distributed. Eggs are distributed only to State hatcheries or to applicants who have hatchery facilities. The varying usage in the classification of young fish as to size has caused such confusion and difficulty that the Bureau has adopted the following uni- 28 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES form definitions, which have been approved by the American Fisheries Society and represent the general sentiment of State and private fish-culturists: Fry—fish up to the time the yolk sac is absorbed and feeding begins. Advanced fry—fish from the end of the fry period until they have reached a length of 1 inch. Fingerlings—fish between the length of 1 inch and the yearling stage, the various sizes to be designated as follows: No. 1, a fish 1 inch in length and up to 2 inches; No. 2,a fish 2 inches in length and up to 3 inches; No. 3,a fish 3 inches in length and up to 4 inches, ete. Yearlings—fish that are 1 year old, but less than 2 years old, from the date of hatching; these may be designated No. 1, No. 2,No.3,etc.,after the plan prescribed for fingerlings. Fish are delivered to applicants free of charge at the railroad station nearest the point of deposit, and for this purpose is maintained a special car and messenger service, which is one of the most important branches of the fish-cultural work. In the early days baggage cars were employed, but these have now been supplanted by an equipment which not only affords more comfort to fish and attendants, but makes it possible to transport the fish much greater distances and with smaller percentage of loss. The cars, of which there are now 6, are of standard size, and are attached to regular express and local passenger trains. Each car has 20 or more large water tanks along the sides in which to carry fish, compartments holding more than 1,000 gallons of reserve water, a boiler room, and a plant for pumping both water and air into the fish tanks. There are also an office, kitchen, pantries, refrigerator, and 6 Pullman sleeping berths, with other facilities for the convenience and comfort of the crew of 5 men (including a cook) who live on the car throughout the year. The Goy- ernment furnishes the cook, fuel, and utensils, but the men provide their own food. For small shipments of fish and for supplying places off the main railway lines messengers detached from the cars carry fish in 1o-gallon cans in baggage cars. The distributions last year required travel amounting to 83,840 miles by the Bureau’s 6 cars, and 263,196 miles by detached messengers—a total of 347,036 miles—of which 11,826 for cars and 80,816 for messengers were furnished by the railroads free of charge. There are few enterprises undertaken by the United States Government that are more popular, meet with more general and generous support, and have contributed more to the prosperity and happiness of a larger number of people than its fish-cultural work, an evidence of which fact is afforded by the attitude and action of Congress. The comparatively large budget for the various branches of the Bureau’s work is voted each year without any opposition whatever, and the appropriations are increasing yearly. When special needs arise and their merit is presented to Congress, special appropriations can usually be obtained; and Government fish-culture is so popular in the country at large and the demand for new hatcheries is so widespread that an extraordinary number of hatchery Popularity of the Work CULTIVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES 29 bills have been introduced and favorably considered in recent sessions of Con- gress. ‘The Bureau advocates the building of new hatcheries as one of the best and most remunerative measures that can possibly be undertaken by the Fed- eral Government, but it rarely has to take the initiative, and on several occasions the establishment of a hatchery has been proposed by Congress before the necessity for it has actually developed. During each of the recent sessions of Congress, had all the bills providing for new hatcheries become laws the Bureau INTERIOR VIEW OF FISH TRANSPORTATION CAR Showing rows of covered tanks where fish are carried, and Pullman sleeping berths for attendants. would have been seriously handicapped in designing and constructing the new buildings and ponds and in supplying competent persons to operate them. In the first session of the Sixtieth Congress, which began in December, 1907, and ended in May, rgo08, there were introduced ror distinct bills, carrying an agere- gate appropriation of $2,142,000 and providing for 74 hatcheries and 4 labora- tories in 43 States and Territories. While the manifold operations of the Bureau touch directly or indirectly practically the entire population of the United States, they appeal with special 30 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES force to the commercial fisherman, the fish dealer, the amateur angler, the student of aquatic biology and physics, the owner of small ponds, lakes, or streams, and the professional cultivator of fishes, mollusks, and other water creatures. SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY The first duties undertaken by the Bureau after its organization involved biological investigations, and the operations up to the present time have con- MARINE HATCHERY AND LABORATORY, WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS Established twenty-five years ago, and devoted to the culture of cod, flounders, and lobsters, the output of which in 1907-8 was 337 millions. Also the headquarters of important biological investigations of the east-coast fauna, the labora- tory privileges being accorded gratuitously to qualified students. tinued to have a distinctly scientific basis. In making his original plans for the systematic investigation of the waters of the United States and the bio- logical and physical problems they present, Commissioner Baird insisted that to study only the food fishes would be of little importance, and that useful con- clusions must needs rest upon a broad foundation of investigations purely scientific in character. The life history of species of economic value should be understood from beginning to end, but no less requisite is it to know the his- SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY 31 tories of the animals and plants upon which they feed or upon which their food is nourished; the histories of their enemies and friends and the friends and foes of their enemies and friends, as well as the currents, temperatures, and other physical phenomena of the waters in relation to migration, reproduction, and growth. In pursuance of this policy the Bureau has secured the services of many prominent men of science, and much of the progress in the artificial propagation RESIDENCE AT THE MARINE STATION, WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS Formerly the summer headquarters of the Bureau, and now occupied by the officials of the laboratory and hatchery and by temporary assistants engaged in special work. of fishes, in the investigation of fishery problems, and in the extension of knowl- edge of our aquatic resources has been due to men eminent as zoologists who have been associated with the work temporarily. Among such men recently have been Alexander Agassiz, Hermon C. Bumpus, Gary N. Calkins, Bashford Dean, Charles H. Gilbert, Theodore Gill, C. Judson Herrick, Francis H. Herrick, David Starr Jordan, A. D. Mead, George H. Parker, Jacob Reighard, Henry B. Ward, William M. Wheeler, and Henry V. Wilson. ‘Their services have been 32 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES the services of specialists for particular problems, and through them the Bureau has not only been able to give to the public the practical results of applied science, but has contributed to pure science valuable knowledge of all forms of aquatic life. The small permanent staff of the Bureau concerns itself more directly with studies of fishes and their environment, with the conservation of diminishing commercial species, and the development of new or improved methods of increas- ing the supply. Such lines of work are undertaken as the need appears or as assistance is asked for, and keep the scientific assistants in the field for extended MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AT BEAUFORT, NORTH CAROLINA This station, built in 1901, is favorably located for the study of the aquatic fauna of the southeast coast. The laboratory building is 174 feet long and 42 feet wide in the main portion, has a large museum and aquaria, and accommodates about 30 workers. Adjoining the laboratory building are a power plant and a mess house and kitchen. periods each year. The most important work in hand at present concerns aquatic products other than fishes—namely, oysters, fresh-water mussels, sponges, and the diamond-back terrapin, in all of which cases the problem is to find means to offset the results of long-continued overdraft upon the natural supply. The Bureau has also the services of a fish pathologist—a position specially created by Congress at the solicitation of the Commissioner. This assistant has devoted most of his time to the study of diseases among fishes at the hatcheries of the Government and of various States, and has added greatly to the existing knowledge of the causes and prevention of many of the affections which often prove so serious in fishes under cultivation. His field includes also the investigation of conditions due to pollution of waters. SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY 33 Two seaside laboratories are maintained by the Bureau for the prosecution of investigations in pure and applied science. One of these is located at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the scene of the first biological work undertaken after the establishment of the Bureau. It was built in 1883, and is in conjunction with a marine fish hatchery. Here also are extensive wharves, at which the largest vessels may lie, and protected harbors for small craft. A large residence build- ing at this station was for a number of years occupied as the summer head- quarters of the Bureau, the entire executive and office force being transferred from Washington. The other laboratory is situated on a small island near Beau- fort, North Carolina, and was constructed in rgo1. The land for both of these stations was donated by private individuals. In addition to their function in the investigations of the Bureau itself, these laboratories are open to the public for study and scientific research. Students and professors in colleges and any other qualified investigators may have the facilities of the laboratories upon request, and these opportunities are largely availed of each year. For the survey of offshore fishing grounds, the study of pelagic fishes, and the general exploration of the seas, the Bureau has had, since 1882, the steamer Albatross, which was specially designed and built for this work and has con- tributed more to the knowledge of the life and physics of the sea than any other vessel. The Albatross is a twin-screw iron steamer, rigged as a brigantine, of 1,074 tons displacement and 384 net tonnage, and was built at a cost of $190,000, including original equipment. The complement of officers and men, numbering about 80, is furnished by the Navy; there is in addition a small civilian staff, ° including a resident naturalist and a fishery expert, to whom the practical work of the ship is intrusted. After spending several years in the investigation of the fishing grounds of the Atlantic coast of North America, the Albatross was dispatched to the Pacific Ocean in 1888 and has since confined her operations to those waters. The vessel has made three extended cruises to the southern and eastern parts of the Pacific, several cruises to the Hawaiian Islands and Japan, and many visits to Alaska, in addition to numerous surveys on the coast of the Pacific States, all having for their object the investigation of the physics and biology of the regions visited, the determination of their aquatic resources, and the study of their fisheries. In 1907 the vessel began a biological survey of the waters of the Philippine Archipelago, and is now engaged on that work. The deepest sounding made by the Albatross—near the island of Guam—was 4,813 fathoms; the greatest depth at which the vessel found life was 4,173 fathoms; the greatest known ocean depth is 5,269 fathoms, near Guam, ascertained by the U.S. S. Nero while using Albatross apparatus. 5577908 —3 34 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES Work similar to that done by the Albatross is conducted by the steamer Fish Hawk on the Atlantic coast. This vessel, built for the Bureau in the winter of 1879-80, is of 441 gross tons burden, and has a naval crew of 45 men; it is equipped for sounding and dredging, and has recently been employed chiefly in the exploration of the coastal waters and inshore fishing grounds of New England while attached to the laboratory at Woods Hole. ‘The vessel is convertible into a hatchery, and has been engaged in the hatching of shad and other fishes along the entire coast from Maine to Texas. Y g g Coe e Y Yh ‘a TRIAL FISHING ON THE ALBATROSS This experimental catch of cod and halibut was taken in twenty minutes by the Albatross while exploring a new ‘“‘bank”’ off the coast of Alaska. The Bureau’s large collections of natural-history specimens are deposited in the United States National Museum. The duplicates, however, are not retained for Government purposes, but are distributed upon request to public schools and colleges. In this way hundreds of thousands of specimens represent- ing all groups of aquatic animals have been supplied for educational purposes. ‘PPsseA Tayjyo Aue uevy} AZopoIq aulreur Jo aBpaymouy ay} 0} arour PoIMA| WOO SPY SSONeGTY OUT, “SWBa00 oYToe_ PUY IULI}Y 94} UI UONvIO[dxe vas-daap ur pue spunois Surysy AuIAaAIms ul pasesua sivad aay- AjuaM} Io} pue nevaing ay} Aq yg SSOYULVEIY YAWV3LS ONINOIdxS V3aS-d33a0 Vs 82-3 Oe omer ee 36 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES STATISTICS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES The first duty to which the Bureau of Fisheries was assigned, namely, the investigation of the reported decrease of food fishes in New England, necessarily involved the collection of statistics of production, personnel, and capital. Since that time this branch of the work has been conducted without interruption, and in it have naturally been included the various other subjects affecting the economic and commercial aspects of the fisheries. Among its functions FISHING A NEW ENGLAND POUND-NET are (1) a general survey of the commercial fisheries of the country; (2) a study of the fishery grounds with reference to their extent, resources, yield, and con- dition; (3) a study of the vessels and boats employed in the fisheries, with special reference to their improvement; (4) a determination of the utility and effect of the apparatus of capture employed in each fishery; (5) a study of the methods of fishing, for the special purpose of suggesting improvements or of discovering the use of unprofitable or unnecessarily destructive methods; (6) an inquiry into the methods of utilizing fishery products, the means and methods of trans- portation, and the extent and condition of the wholesale trade; (7) a census of the fishing population, their economic and hygienic condition, nativity, and. STATISTICS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES 37 citizenship; (8) a study of international questions affecting the fisheries; (9) the prosecution of inquiries regarding the fishing apparatus and methods of foreign countries. MACKEREL VESSELS AT A BOSTON DOCK The mackerel schooners are among the fastest and handsomest vessels of the Atlantic coast, and Boston is the principa market for the catch Fishing is done chiefly with purse seines, to manage which large crews are required. The yield of mackerel on our coast has been uninterruptedly small for twenty-two years, preceded by a period of almost unprecedented abundance. The collection of statistics of the commercial fisheries and the industries dependent thereon constitutes the major part of this work. The information is required in great detail, and is obtained by the personal inquiries of a 38 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES small corps of agents, who visit all the fishing communities and interview fishermen, fish dealers, vessel owners, factory proprietors, and others. While the Bureau is not authorized by law to enforce demands for data, it very rarely happens that information is refused; on the contrary, the objects and value of the work being now well understood, many thousands of fishermen keep accurate records for the special use of the Bureau, and dealers, transportation companies, preparators, etc., permit free access to their books. The relatively small force available for the collection of statistics, the magni- tude of the territory to be covered, and the extent of the fisheries prevent the canvass of more than one section of the country during one season; and it has been found impossible to cover the entire coastwise and interior fisheries oftener than once in four or five years. Herewith are the latest available statistics gathered by the Bureau for the general fishing industry. These figures show that 219,534 persons were engaged in the fisheries, $94,254,839 were invested in vessels, boats, apparatus, and other property, and the products had a value of $61,047,909. STATEMENT OF THE PERSONS ENGAGED AND THE CAPITAL INVESTED IN THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. Atlantic and Gulf States. Pacific Coast States and Alaska. Item. =n Thos = = Number. Value. Number. Value. Persons employed _-___- ee : TOL} 029)\|=2s-o eee ee B24) sae ee Vessels fishing-______ E =a Bt 4,584 $8,170, 256 121 $621, 017 Tonnage___ é : Sha Age | ewe ee ae oe 825 Ge eee ee Quik aaeee ona Sanaa: 3) OOOf425 2k. Se We sees | 289, 897 Vessels transporting ___ E b 1, 686 1, 847, 469 334 2771 O22 Tontavests=s-4=-2 Ee Be 205737) |en- se eae 625-255 pee eee es Outfit : : eee Sa hee aos 295, 257 [ee roe 68,055 Boats : | 61, 489 3, 981, 761 10, 155 1, 528, 911 Seines xt 3, 888 534, 227 772 | 282, 244 Gill nets and trammel nets ee 143, 824 782, 338 8, 611 I, 095, 282 Pound nets, trap nets, and weirs_______ | 7,384 I, 540, 835 680 | I, 444, 510 Fyke nets____-- ee 19, 033 94, 180 446 4, 610 Beam trawls and paranzellas________ _ __ 66 | 1, 696 41 | 6, 371 Wheels and slides___- : 2S 37 775 49 | 168, 000 Eel and lobster pots- : 228, 086 248, O74 Nis eee ee Oe Dredges, tongs, rakes, scrapes, etc. ______| sheen 411, 424 Rie! Lines Says a ee | 347,070) leo see 44, 421 Other apparatus. ——2 ioe 2 55) 347 45,075 Shore and accessory property 20, 571, 131 = 10, 473, 781 Cash capital = eae en =| D5pOIG O70) t= 7, 205, 650 otal 2 225 J Bo, seme See ae |e ene eee ee P56, 902, 850 Bee oo eee oe PRE ONOSS MONTY, STATISTICS AND STATEMENT OF THE PERSONS ENGAGED Unirep StTaTEs—Continued. Persons employed Vessels fishing -______ dloniage=== 3-55 Se SISOS se ess See Ns ey te ee Gill nets and trammel nets__---____-___- Pound nets, trap nets, and weirs________- Bvikemetsasea= oe sees Soe Bases = Beam trawls and paranzellas___________ | Wiheelstandislidessae=== === === Pease =e| Other apparatus = -6 5-49 ee a | Shore and accessory property____-______ Cashitcapitalia: mses =een ase ake nS | ‘ ‘ | | Great Lakes and interior waters. METHODS OF THE FISHERIES 39 AND THE CAPITAL INVESTED IN THE FISHERIES OF THE | Number. | Number. | Value. Value. 25, 201 | cee ee | QO N5 34> |p eee 194 | $634, 450 | 4,899 | $9,425, 723 Gifeld | See eee Ciclo. Seem setsssoss== 147, 402 |-- | 3,443,724 18 69, 400 | 2,038 4, 687, 891 0,0) | as = ee OP Ages Lae sas meee UE ees SHUsAul == Sanne _| 371, 466 12, 156 529, 766 83, 800 6, 040, 438 992 76, 612 5, 652 893, 083 102, 604 657, 804 255, 039 2,535,424 4, 848 617, 063 12, 912 3, 602, 408 40, 72 261, 379 60, 203 360, 169 De ts ee See Sone 107 8, 067 4 480 go 169, 255 Ears tear Gee eR eet 228, 086 248, 974 eee kare sone TOS 3) | S252.eseeee= ged 6, 492, 885 156, 727 7, 080, 770 182, 274 Pike perches 32-2 - = sass see eee 10, 868, 404 456, 470 / 10, 899, 604 457,975 Pikevand pickerelas2e a= ae ee I, 296, 911 69, 677 I, 451, 270 | 79, 722 Rollockis a2 5-528 oo Se eee ae Se ee ee | 29, 033, 093 305, 436 Pompano: 4.2 -c=s 6 o52 25a sen hae a ee ee oe 910, 155 | 61, 407 Roelfist.s2se0 25522-5305. o- e ee oe eee [eee eee 1, 896, 467 | 63, 409 SALONS 22 aa ane ee ee ee 125, 858 5,629 | 267,601,561 | 12, 615, 748 Sips aa rer eae ka eee [ae ost ioe eee eee , 216, 731 | 250, 320 Séaibass:2 2s Seba joel eee eee |------------ / 4, 282, 313 | 183, 219 Shadsii 5208 <2 ce east eae ee 8,750 | 875 28, 563,385 | 1, 702,373 Sheepsheadi=: - sci = et ee fe EES on 2, 634, 046 | 68, 060 silver Hake. =... - 22. 324.223.3022 2) eee eee |b _eraes 5,549, 935 | 37, 866 Smelts--- ~. = =/.32 eee eee eae 23, 600 2,720 | 3,414, 662 | 152, 403 Mollusks: STATISTICS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES 43 STATEMENT OF THE PRODUCTS OF THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES—Continued. Propucr. Fishes—Continued. | Suapper ede sss. Soe ae ese Siiibaeonn See Se ee eee SUCK EL SSE eae Seats Sees aE an Stinfishesse= sere eis Ae eee so SHOR Cats) vere 2S aes es See ee aoe Whiting and kingfish_....-__._-._--.- Othemisheese Be eee noe Sa His hwo Sra nee tse Ue /NOYANG NGI ee oe ees C@lamssbard-shellee: S25 eee Clams, soft-shell and other Cockles, winkles, conchs, ete MISS el Sa ease ee en ore oO ee Ov Sheree te eens OS ee ae | Oyster and other shells_____ ___- RSI eeCralloS we Se eee es | I ODSte ramet ene ts See ee Shrmplandeprawileesse == = oe oe ae oe Simin Grell: <2 2. ne eee ee SpitiyslobStersseee= = ae iy eas Reptiles and batrachians: Rerrapins ala eturtlessas === ee a Great Lakes and interior waters. Pounds. 1, 647, 306 9, 087, 213 1, 325,521 17, 069, 284 Value. Total. Pounds. 13, 763, 653 401, 349 3, 673, 846 2,023, 476 44, 783, 504 4,171, 758 3, 261, 212 9, 538, 639 2,088,519 | 3, 311, 369 847, 756 20, 158, 954 29) 7OUn| I, 178, 650 | 13, 651, 988 745, 162 824, 948 9, 064, 852 8, 438, 510 93, 734 1, 580, 065 51, 856, 430 217, 787, 610 19, 983, 845 1,586, 151 I, 379; 729 49, 219, 543 503, 328 2, 303, 000 | IT, 898, 136 | 17, 689, 539 950, 000 1, 078, 065 349, 927 345, 259 T, 409, 314 Value. $418, 360 II, 419 171, 974 65,759 1, 265, 507 352, 042 232, 954 196, 304 2, 606 205, 567 28, 298 o81, 117 4 350, 186 56, 107 313, 835 20, 047 9, 155 1, 385, 442 574, 002 13,510 8, 469 530, 098 18, 449, 104 20, 706 297, 658 27, 361 905, 749 24, 274 8, 903 1, 364, 721 393, 696 4, 390 43, 406 49,779 26, 077 114, 494 44 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES STATEMENT OF THE PRODUCTS OF THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES—Continued. PrRopwer, Mammals: Fur-seal' pelts: /.- = 2-2-7 eee ob Hair-seal pelts__.-.------ : Otter pelts* 225 "* see Whalebone__-_ Whale oil Ambergris_____ ee Sea-elephant oil Sea-elephant skins___- Walrus products_____- Minor products____- Miscellaneous: Sponges____-_- Seaweeds____--- : All other products____ | Total. sreat Lakes and interior waters. Pounds. Value. Pounds. Value. feet Eb Sees 92, 364 $484, 649 ~ === ==--------|------- -- 75,417 13, 354 16 $40 6, 861 35, 110 aSe so S eee 176, 141 722, 651 eee ee Ee 4, 341, 973 267, 361 ee ee ees a Sr oe 94 16, 900 a ee etd ee een ae Le 590, 625 25, 000 Sata te be ae Sas Soe eee 5, 000 600 Ss S2sce.- ss eas| eS aoSet bass 8,749. 5,771 ee a ee 7) 575 | 7791 | | See ae ee 346, 889 | 364, 422 | g00, 320 — 36, 387 24, 200 2, 092 4, 108, 829 76, 398 185, 187, 239 | $5,012,598 2, 033,992, 699 | $61, 047, 909 SUPPLEMENTARY TABLE SHOWING CERTAIN OF THE ABOVE PRODUCTS IN BUSHELS, GALLONS, AND Clams, hard-shell___- Clams, soft-shell and other Mussels. ~--_--- Oysters: == Oyster and other shells @ Scallopsiese=- s- - Cockles and’ winkles Oil, fish_ whale. _- -- sea-elephant_______ Fur-seal pelts____------- Alligator hides__ Otter skins NUMBER. PRopucr. Quantity. @ Exclusive of tortoise and mussel shells. I, 133, 106 843, 851 48, 946 BY, 212, 515 332, 910 264, 358 9, 400 99, 375 578, 930 78, 75° 15, 394 70, 410 4,537 STATISTICS AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES 45 The two most important fishing ports on the Atlantic coast are Boston and Gloucester, from which places upward of 435 vessels, of 24,000 net tonnage, valued at $2,150,000 and carrying over 6,000 men, are employed in the fisheries. A BUSY DAY AT T WHARF, BOSTON The daily arrival, unloading, baiting, refitting, and departure of the fresh-fish fleet make T Wharf one of the most animated and interesting spots in Boston. Most of the vessels are schooner rigged, and engaged in fishing on the high seas or on the “banks” lying off the United States and the British provinces. In the year,ltg07 about 200,000,000 pounds of fish, having a first value of over 46 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES $5,250,000, were landed in the ports named. For the purpose of keeping in close touch with the condition and extent of these fisheries, which afford a good criterion of the New England fisheries as a whole, two local agents are employed to collect daily statistics of receipts, and this information is incorporated into a special bulletin issued monthly and widely distributed to the trade. It is the expectation that this local statistical service will be extended to other important centers. The Bureau has conducted several investigations of the fisheries of the Hawatian Islands and Porto Rico, and is now engaged in a study of the fisheries of the Philippine Islands. The latest information obtained gives the following figures for Hawaii and Porto Rico; for the Philippines no complete data are available, but it is estimated that the industry yields annually products to the value of $10,000,000 to $15,000,000. Hawaii | Porto Rico La (1903). (1902). Persons engaged in fishing___ ee eee 3, 241 748 Value of vessels, boats, and apparatus employed___-______________+_____ $309, 217 | $35, 826 Quantity of catch (pounds)______ ft 375-2 : eho See) 6, 0725785 2, 169, 770 Value of catch Se oe see eee ome aS $677, 897 $106, 022 ALASKA SALMON-INSPECTION SERVICE The fishing interests in Alaska, representing an investment of $9,000,000 and yielding last year a product valued at more than $10,000,000, have received especial attention from the Government ever since the Territory was acquired, in 1867. The seal fisheries, at first considered the most valuable sources of rev- enue, were at once placed under protective legislation. Later there appeared a similar need of regulation of the salmon fisheries, which have now come to support industries many times more valuable than the seal fisheries and stand- ing in large proportion to the total fishing interests of the whole United States. The Alaska salmon-inspection service has thus grown to be one of the most important branches of Government fishery work, and it is one of the few instances where the Government has assumed legislative powers over fishing. Supervision of the salmon fisheries, as of the seal, was at first given to the Treasury Department, and it remained under that jurisdiction until 1903, when it was transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor, by which it is administered through the Bureau of Fisheries. There are three agents in this field, whose duty it is to inquire into the methods by which fish are caught, prepared, and marketed, and into the conditions of supply, to report thereon and recommend legislation, and to enforce existing laws. For these purposes ALASKA SALMON-INSPECTION SERVICE 47 the entire region is canvassed every year, the agents remaining on the ground throughout the fishing season, from June to September. The protection of the Alaska salmon fisheries has been a difficult problem. The unheard-of magnitude of the resources invited a corresponding recklessness and improvidence. As the canning industry developed, every device that could be used for wholesale capture of fish was put into operation, and gradually all of the favorite streams of the salmon became so blocked with seines, gill nets, traps, and barricades that but a small proportion of the fish could find passage to the spawning grounds, and the future supply was thus most seriously endan- SALMON TRAP IN AN ALASKAN RIVER This form of trap is extensively used in the Bristol Bay region, and takes immense quantities of salmon for the can- neries. The largest traps have leaders more than half a mile long, and cost upward of $15,000. gered. The Alaskan aborigines likewise conducted their fishing in a very destruc- tive way, often placing impassable barriers in streams up which salmon were running, and, through ignorance or indifference, leaving the obstructions in place after the full supply of fish had been secured. It was soon apparent that the laws and regulations were inadequate to meet the special conditions pre- vailing, and were of such a nature as to make their enforcement very difficult. In 1903 a special commission was appointed to make exhaustive study of the natural history of the salmons of Alaska and to submit recommendations for an improved regulation of the fisheries. As a result a new code of laws is now 45 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES in effect and promises to prevent the threatened decline in these enormous indus- tries. With increased restrictions as to fishing methods, obstructions in streams, close seasons, ete., the Department of Commerce and Labor is empowered to set aside any streams as spawning preserves whenever such course shall be desir- able, all fishing in such waters to be prohibited. A license tax is required on all salmon products; from the payment of this tax, however, all canning and NATIVE METHOD OF SETTING GILL NETS, ALASKA The nets are set thus on the shore of Nushagak Bay, and at low tide are left entirely bare. salting establishments are exempted upon condition of- their returning young salmon to the streams in the ratio of 1,000 fry to every. ro cases of salmon canned. ‘Three private hatcheries, representing extensive canning interests, were in operation in 1907 and liberated a total of 119,000,000 young fish. The Government itself has undertaken extensive hatchery work, having now in oper- ation a station at Yes Lake established in 1905 and one at Afognak Bay just completed. In the two years of its operations the Yes Bay hatchery has produced and liberated over 61,000,000 salmon fry. ALASKA SALMON-INSPECTION SERVICE 49 The seal and salmon fisheries have hitherto overshadowed all other aquatic resources in Alaska, not only in commercial value but in revenue to the Gov- ernment. The rental from the fur-seal islands alone has more than repaid the purchase price of the Territory, and the tax derived from the salmon fisheries now amounts to about $90,000 a year. Some long-neglected products are gradu- ally coming into importance, however, and the cod, halibut, and herring fisheries ALASKAN FISH TRAPS AND RUNS Used by natives on Chilkoot Stream for obtaining their winter supply of salmon. especially have undergone remarkable development in the last few years. Since it became a part of the United States, Alaska has yielded fishery products amounting in value to $158,000,000, of which about $49,000,000 was derived from fur seals, $86,000,000 from salmon, and the remaining $23,000,000 from all other aquatic products. The sum paid by the United States to Russia for the Territory of Alaska was only $7,200,000. 55778-—0S--4 50 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES RELATIONS WITH THE STATES AND WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES From the beginning of its career the Bureau has maintained cordial rela- tions with the fishery authorities of the various States. The policy has been to aid and supplement, never to supplant, the work of the States; and the field is so large and the objects in view have such importance and common interest that there should never arise cause for unfriendly rivalry. The coop- eration in fish-cultural, biological, and fishery work has been extensive. WHITEFISH AND PIKE-PERCH HATCHERY AT PUT-IN BAY, LAKE ERIE, OHIO The aggregate output of this station in 1907-8 was over 564 million young fish, besides 72 million eggs sent to other hatcheries. Twenty-seven of the States have hatcheries of their own, and to any of these the Bureau transfers eggs and fry when they are available and desired. This policy is not only an aid to the State work, but facilitates the hatching by relieving congestion at the Government stations, and it also permits the most judicious planting of the fish. The Bureau has in a number of cases taken over and operated hatcheries owned by the States, and in others the egg collections are made conjointly. In the Pacific salmon work there was for years coopera- tion between the California Fish Commission and the Bureau, and much of the whitefish and pike perch work on Lake Erie has been done by the Bureau work- ing with the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania. RELATIONS WITH STATES AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES 51 In the States that have no means for undertaking the fish-cultural work the Government is looked to for the stocking of both public and private waters; and, for that matter, the Bureau distributes young fish to applicants in all States without distinction. In the introduction of nonindigenous fishes, how- ever, the Bureau responds to applications only with the approval of State authorities. The evil that may result from the indiscriminate planting of PART OF INTERIOR OF PUT-IN BAY HATCHERY The arrangement of the jars in the form of a '‘ battery ’’ economizes space and facilitates hardling of eggs and fry. new fishes, especially the predaceous species, is obvious, but as it is not gen- erally recognized by applicants that the popular black basses and trouts, for instance, do not dwell together in amity, full precaution is taken to secure requisite information before the fish are supplied. The extent of Government aid to State hatchery work may be judged from the following table, showing the numbers of eggs consigned gratis to State fish commissions during the year ended June 30, 1rgo8. No THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES ALLOTMENTS OF EGGs To STaTE Fisu Commissions, Fiscal YEAR 1908. STATE AND SPECIES. California: Chinook salmon_____- Colorado: Black-spotted trout — ~~~ ---- Wakes Utes ae Idaho? Brook trout=======-- === Minos seeike;perchhe === = Maine: Landlocked salmon__-__- ~~ ~~ | Witte: perchaas sa. =e eee Maryland: Rainbow: troute== == eee Wellow perch. = 52-~ 24: =-- Massachusetts: Rainbow trout__) Michigan: Landlocked salmon__-_-_- ~~ ~~ | Makettroute 22 ==- = eae Pike perches ssa Missouri: Brooketroutoeee sense Graylin gt = eee Pike perchess<22-s-22—-=5= Nevada: Lake trout BrOOK Olt sense = eee } New Hampshire: Chinook saimonla2]-— os = | Number of eggs. 68, 647,550 125, 000 50, 000 100, 000 25, 000, 000 100, 000 7oo, 000 150, 000 2, 080, 000 15, 000 10,000 | 500, 000 | 43, 000, 000 100, 000 50, 000 5, 000, 000 100, 000 200, 000 | 100, 000 | STATE AND SPECIES. New York—Continued. Lake trouts: = 6a Ohio: Wihttensh == 2s==—==-— Sees alkevciscos- =a = eeewe! Oregon: Chinook salmon____--~- Pennsylvania: Whitefish-=-323= 222 2==—— ake: Cisco o- a= = eee Silver salmon ee Black-spotted trout________ akertrow tee == ene oe Pikeiperchoss === sean ee | Utah: Rainbow trout_--_-_----- Vermont: | Wakentroute= =22=ss----=2- | Teyqololle weybNt~ = ee | Wisconsin: Wihitenshe a= see nee | Steelhead trout======s—= === | Rain DO Walco tte Grayling Oo ee ease Wyoming: Steelhead! trout=s==—— == === Black-spotted trout__—____- Lake-trout= 25>. Number of eggs. 300, 000 @ 30, 906, 000 @ 2,070, 000 1, 485, 000 b 76, 860, 000 10, 720, 000 100, 000 126, 000 500, 000 b 144, 725, 000 50, 000 300, 000 84, 500 15, 000, 000 50, 000 100, 000 50, 000 20, 000 63, 000 50, 000 bakeitrottes eae eee 504, 000 Grayling=-32-2 eee 50, 000 New York: f Wihitehsbiese > =e aon aera 15, 000, 000 Total_------------------ | 440, 161, 050 Landlocked salmon_____---- 20, 000 | SL a The Ohio Fish Commission cooperated by furnishing a vessel and crew, and defrayed the expenses of collecting these eggs. > The Pennsylvania Fish Commission contributed the cost of collecting these eggs. In addition to the eggs distributed as above, 3,500,000 yellow-perch fry were consigned to Connecticut and 1,475,000 lobster fry to Massachusetts ; and of rainbow-trout fingerlings, yearlings, and adults, 44,800 were donated to Maryland and 5,000 to Nebraska. The oyster-producing States more than any others have asked for the assistance of the Bureau’s scientific staff. In Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas extensive surveys have PUBLICATIONS. 5 WwW been made or are being made, the oyster grounds charted, biological and phys- ical conditions studied, and the path to successful cultivation pointed out. In North Carolina the declining shad fishery was recently investigated in both its natural history and statistical aspects by the Bureau at the request of the State authorities. State hatcheries have frequently called for aid in the study and treatment of epidemics among the fry and young fish. The results achieved in these various instances will be referred to elsewhere. International courtesy has prompted the donation of American fish eggs to foreign governments, and the hardiness of such eggs and the facility with which they may be transported out of water for long distances have resulted in the establishment of some of the best of our food and game fishes in distant lands. Thus the brook trout and other American salmonoids are now thriving in Argentina; the brook trout, the rainbow trout, and the black bass are widely distributed in Europe; the rainbow and brook trouts are found in several Japanese lakes; and some of the finest trout fishing in the world is afforded by the rainbow trout in New Zealand, where also the chinook salmon, the blueback salmon, and various other American fishes are now flourishing. Dur- ing the past year about 4,000,000 eggs of salmons and trouts were shipped abroad. When the Bureau is unable to supply such requests from its own stock, it acts as agent in the purchase from private fish-cultural establishments, supervising the packing and the transportation to the point of embarkation. PUBLICATIONS The 65 large volumes which represent the United States Bureau of Fish- eries on library shelves are not the mere routine report or annual statement of funds disbursed and duties discharged. The scientific study and the practical experiment which are the foundation of the Bureau’s work yield results of manifold interest and far-reaching significance, and such results are corre- spondingly fruitful of discussion. The dissemination of the knowledge they afford is, moreover, a recognized function for which the periodical document issue is the established medium. The subject-matter of these volumes is thus coextensive with the scope of the operations of the Bureau—it is biological, fish-cultural, and commercial, treated from standpoints both technical and economic. The names of J. A. Allen, Baird, Bean, Bumpus, Dean, Farlow, Forbes, Gill, Gilbert, Goode, Jordan, Rathbun, Ryder, Verrill, and numbers of other well-known biologists give the publications authority in science; and the reports of Baird, again, and the pioneers, Atkins, Clark, Green, Hessel, McDonald, and Stone, and their successors, constitute practically a history of fish culture in America. The Manual of Fish Culture, first issued in 1897 and revised in 1900, is yet the only publication in English covering that subject. The seven-volume ‘Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States,”’ 54 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES by Goode and his associates—Clark, Collins, Karll, Elliott, McDonald, and True— though published about twenty years ago, remains a standard work of reference. Of special interest and value during recent years have been the numerous con- tributions of Evermann, either alone or in collaboration, on the fishes of Hawaii, Porto Rico, the interior and coastal waters of America, ete.; the reports of Benedict, Rathbun, and others on crustacean resources, of Herrick on the lobster, of Kunz on pearls, of Moore on oysters and oyster culture, of Parker and Herrick on the special senses in fishes, and various other papers by regular assistants of the Bureau on economic, biological, and fish-cultural subjects. In addition to the foregoing, the publications treat of the physical conditions in lakes and streams, the methods used in deep-sea investigation, and all forms of minute animal and plant life in their relation to fishes—reaching into the fields of oceanography, hydrography, geology, and chemistry, as well as biology. The Bureau is thus responsible for a literature which no bibliography of natural science could omit and which has an educational value and popular interest widely acknowledged and availed of. For the first ten years of the existence of the Bureau its publications were comprised in a series of annual octavo volumes known as the Commissioner’s Report. In 1881 another series was begun, likewise of annual issue, and desig- nated ‘Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission.’’ ‘These two series endured as instituted until the year 1905, when new legislation brought about a change. So far as form is concerned, however, the change affects only the Com- missioner’s Report. ‘This report is no longer a bound book containing a detailed discussion of the year’s work with special reports appended, but is reduced to a brief administrative statement of results, occupying less than 50 octavo pages. The special reports formerly published as appendixes and making up the major portion of the original volume are now issued as separate, independent pamphlets under distinct title-pages and covers. These papers are in general fish-cultural and economic, being detailed accounts of special investigations or experiments briefly noticed in the Commissioner’s Report and as a rule contemporary. ‘The rela- tionship of their subject-matter is recognized in their size and typographical style, which is such as to permit them to be bound, if desired, with the Com- missioner’s Report to which they pertain. They are issued at no fixed intervals, but from time to time according to quantity and character of material and the exigencies of printing, each annual group, however, being usually completed within the year the Commissioner’s Report is issued. The Bulletin remains as heretofore, composed of papers (chiefly technical) upon all phases of aquatic biology studied by the Bureau or its collaborators. The volumes are annual, in royal octavo, with continuous pagination and general index. ‘The separates are issued at irregular intervals, as are the pamphlets just described, and a volume is ordinarily closed within the year following the date PUBLICATIONS 5 in in its title. The present volume of the Bulletin, which is nearing completion, is the twenty-seventh, for the year 1907. The publications are distributed gratis to all persons or institutions that desire them. A permanent mailing list is maintained, and individual requests also are complied with as received. The change affecting the content of the annual report, however, carried with it a new plan in the general distribution of documents. The laws establishing the Report and Bulletin had contemplated their issue in the form of annual bound volumes only, though it was possible to obtain a small edition of special papers in advance as separates. ‘The separates, of course, offered the advantage of promptness in publication, convenience to the reader interested in a particular subject, and economy to the Bureau where without them it would have been necessary to supply entire volumes to persons desiring only a part. Accordingly, when revision of the printing laws made a new course possible, the pamphlet form was adopted almost exclusively for general distribution, exception being made only in the case of reference libraries, Government Departments, public fishery organizations, institutions of learning, etc., for whose purposes the annual bound volumes were better suited. To all other addresses on the mailing list and to all subsequent correspondents the Bureau forwarded a circular announcement of the change which was to take effect, furnishing a classification of subject-matter, and asking to be advised what papers would be desired in future. To the extent of the edition provided, any or all of the documents published are now supplied in accordance with the wishes thus ascertained. The subjects covered in the papers may be classified as follows: 1. Annual Report of the Commissioner. Fish-culture: (a) Methods. (b) Distribution of fish and eggs (c) Fish diseases and parasites. Aquatic biology: (a) Economic investigations. (b) Explorations and surveys, the methods, apparatus, ete. (c) Descriptions of species and faunal lists. (d) Morphological, physiological, and pathological studies. 4. Statistics and methods of the ‘commercial fisheries. 5. Special subjects, such as oysters, sponges, pearls, fur seals, investiga- tions of popular interest, etc., to be designated by applicant. to ow For convenience of reference all publications of the Bureau are given a serial number, document 635 being the last issued. A list of titles of all avail- able documents, arranged by numbers and indexed by subjects, is kept up to date and can be had upon request. Most of the earlier numbers are now out of print, some of the most valuable works unfortunately being no longer obtain- able from any source unless from second-hand book dealers. Of some important 56 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES recent works an edition of 2,000 was exhausted within a year, and several doc- uments of particular public interest have run through eight or ten editions. It is now possible to supply only a few odd back volumes and some 300 different pamphlets. The permanent mailing list, which is steadily growing, includes at present some 1,500 addresses, representing various National and State government departments, fishery organizations and biological societies, public libraries and museums, colleges, newspapers and magazines, numerous fish-culturists, edu- cators, students, sportsmen, and other persons with related interests. It is in the daily requests for particular papers, however, that the public interest in the Bureau’s work is most manifest. During the past year, which has shown an especially marked increase in this respect, 25,423 documents were sent out in response to special requests. As already stated, the Bureau distributes its publications free upon request. The Commissioner’s Annual Report and the Bulletin (but not the independent pamphlet reports) can also be obtained free from Members of Congress, each United States Senator and Representative receiving a quota from the edition provided for this purpose. The Bulletin in this edition is the cloth-bound vol- ume, delivered annually. All of the documents can be purchased in pamphlet form from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., at a price representing ten per cent more than actual cost. SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK Much evidence can be adduced to show that the fish-cultural operations of the General Government are of direct financial ben- efit to the country at large. The results in the case of some species have been so striking and so widespread that it would be almost as supererogatory to refer to them as to discuss the utility of agriculture; in the case of other species there can be no doubt of the value of the work, although it may be possible only occasionally to distinguish the effects of human interven- tion on the fish supply from the effects of natural causes. The outcome of the Bureau’s efforts to increase the food supply is naturally most evident in the case of small streams, lakes, and ponds, of which thousands have been success- fully stocked with the most desirable food and game species. It is not necessary to refer further to this work, but a few of the important results of operations on public waters may appropriately be mentioned. The leading river fish of the eastern seaboard is the shad. No other anadromous species has been more extensively cultivated and none is now so dependent on artificial measures for its perpetuation. Inasmuch as the prin- cipal fisheries are in interstate or coastal waters and the movements of the fish from the high seas to our rivers and back to the high seas place it beyond the Fish Culture SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 5 o7 claim to ownership which might be urged by the various States were the shad a permanent resident within their jurisdiction, it seemed especially desirable and necessary that this species should be fostered by the General Government for the benefit of the entire country. For this reason, and owing to a serious decline that had already set in, the shad was one of the first species whose artificial propagation was taken up by the Bureau, and its cultivation is to-day a leading factor in fishery work, almost every large stream having been the site of hatching operations. ‘The extent of the work may be gaged when it is stated that nearly FISHERIES STEAMER FISH HAWK Engaged in hydrographic and biological surveys on the New England coast, and often employed as a shad hatchery on east-coast rivers. 3,000 millions of young shad have been planted by the Bureau in coastal streams; and a very significant point is that the eggs from which these fish were hatched were taken from fish that had been caught for market, and hence would have been totally lost if the Bureau had not collected them from the fishermen. The great multiplication of all kinds of fishing appliances on the coast, in the bays, in the estuaries, and along the courses of the rivers resulted in the capture of a very large part of the run each season before the shad reached the spawning grounds, and hence the natural increase was seriously curtailed, and, 58 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES in some streams, almost entirely prevented. Yet the shad catch increased, and for many years the fishery prospered in the face of conditions more unfavorable than confront any other fish of our eastern rivers At length, however, the unrestricted fishing became greedy to an overwhelming extent. The mouths of the rivers and the lower waters through which the shad must pass became so choked with nets that fishing gear farther upstream could make but slender hauls; and for several vears there has been a steady decline in catch, which MAIN DECK OF STEAMER FISH HAWK Showing arrangement of McDonald automatic jars for hatching shad threatens to result in the extinction of the fishery. The Bureau has continued its efforts in propagation, but these are curtailed by the factor that is also destructive to the fishery. When they first enter the streams the shad are not ripe and are useless to the hatcheries, and the spawntakers must therefore wait for the run farther upstream; but with the recent exhaustive fishing in the salt waters so few fish have escaped that the egg collections have diminished to an alarming extent, being reckoned now in millions where formerly they were SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 59 hundreds of millions. Under such conditions it is impossible to propagate enough fish to offset the quantities taken, and the shad fishery is fast being deprived of its one support; while the present meager shad catch together with the enforced curtailment of propagation speaks even more convincingly of the value of artificial measures than did the preceding increase. LARGEST SEINE IN THE WORLD This seine. operated for shad and alewives at Stony Point, Virginia, on the Potomac River, was the longest net of the kind. The net proper was 9,600 feet in length, and the hauling ropes at the ends were 22,400 feet long, giving 32,000 feet as the total sweep of the seine, only one end of which shows in the illustration. The seine was hauled by steam power and the labor of 80 men, and was drawn twice daily, at ebb tide, throughout the season. As many as 3,600 shad were taken at one haul, and 126,000 in one season, and 250,000 alewives were caught at one time, Recently the season’s yield of shad fell to 3,000, and the fishery was consequently discontinued in 1905 after having been carried on for a century. ‘This seine was a source of eggs for the Bureau's shad hatchery on this river. The long continuance of the Penobscot as a salmon stream for many years after all other New England rivers had ceased to carry this fish is directly attributable to the work of the Bureau on that stream. So dependent on artificial measures has been the perpetuation of the salmon supply that it is believed the obliteration of the run and the wiping out of a long-established fishery would ensue within five years after the suspension of fish-cultural opera- 60 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES tions. Physical conditions in the Penobscot have become so unfavorable for the passage of salmon to the spawning grounds that natural reproduction is now almost if not altogether inhibited; and the only noteworthy source of young salmon is the eggs obtained by the Bureau from salmon purchased from the fishermen. A PENOBSCOT RIVER SALMON WEIR Large numbers of these traps are set in the Penobscot during the short season, and they intercept practically the entire run of salmon. ‘The fish thus caught are the sole source of eggs for the hatchery on Craig Brook, a small tributary of the Penobscot. Evidence is not lacking to show that the long-continued and increasingly extensive fish-cultural operations on the Great Lakes have prevented the deple- tion of those waters in the face of the most exhausting lake fisheries in the world. The luscious whitefish, the splendid lake trout, the excellent pike perch, or wall- eyed pike, may be hatched in such numbers as to assure their preservation without serious curtailment of the fisheries. The absence of concerted protective measures, however, on the part of the various States interested has the tendency SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 61 to minimize the effects of cultivation and would seem to justify, if not impera- tively demand, the assumption of jurisdiction by the Federal Government. The magnitude of the salmon fisheries of the Pacific States has required very extensive artificial measures to keep up the supply. The operations of the Bureau, in combination with those of the States, have been gradually extended in both scale and scope until they have now attained a tremendous extent and are addressed to all the species whose cultivation is as yet demanded. OPEN-AIR SALMON-REARING TROUGHS These troughs are used at the Craig Brook (Maine) hatchery for rearing Atlantic and landlocked salmon. The quantity of Pacific salmon eggs collected by the Bureau in 1908 was over 200,000,000, equivalent to 1,700 bushels. A remarkable fact in the history of the Pacific salmons—of which there are five species—is that without exception all fish which enter any stream on the entire coast die after once spawning, none surviving to return to the sea. This wise provision of nature to prevent the overstocking of streams has been made foolish by the appearance of man on the scene; he not only catches the salmon in the coast waters and the lower courses of the rivers with gill nets, seines, and pound nets, in the upper waters with the same appliances supplemented by the 62 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES fish wheels, and on the spawning grounds with all sorts of contrivances, but in certain sections even carries his foolhardy greed to the extent of barricading SALMON HATCHERY AT BAIRD, CALIFORNIA The pioneer salmon hatchery on the Pacific coast, located on the McCloud River, a swift stream formed by the melting The station can accommodate 25 million eggs at one time, and in 1907-8 produced about snow on Mount Shasta. Operations of this hatchery and its auxiliaries 5 million young chinook or quinnat salmon and 15 million eyed eggs. at Battle Creek and Mill Creek (where 744 million eggs of the chinook salmon were taken in 1907) have been the prime factor in maintaining the salmon run in the Sacramento River. the streams so that no fish can reach the waters where their eggs must be depos- ited. Natural reproduction, thus so seriously curtailed, is not sufficient to keep SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 63 up the supply in many of the streams where fishing is most active, for many of the eggs escape fertilization, many more are eaten by the swarms of predaceous fishes that haunt the spawning beds, and many are lost in various other ways during the long hatching period; while the helpless fry and alevin fall a ready prey to the same fishes in the upper waters and the young salmon have to run the long gauntlet of the rivers only to meet new foes in the estuaries, on the coast, and in the open sea. RACK AT BATTLE CREEK, CALIFORNIA Erected by the Bureau each year to intercept salmon on their way to spawning grounds and supply eggs for the hatcheries, It is, therefore, no wonder that artificial propagation on a large scale is imperatively demanded in the western salmon streams, and is actively urged and highly commended by fishermen, canners, business men, and the public at large. The beneficial influence of the work of the Government, supplemented by that of the three coast States, has been unmistakable in some sections and can not be doubted in general; but it is of course very difficult to distinguish definitely the increase due to natural from that due to artificial propagation. 64 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES The history of the salmon fishery in the Sacramento River in California, and the recent increase in the catch notwithstanding most unfavorable physical conditions in that stream, afford unmistakable evidence of the value of cultiva- tion. Some very suggestive though not altogether conclusive information rela- tive to the benefits of salmon culture in the Columbia River has been furnished by marking young salmon before releasing them from the hatcheries. The number of marked salmon that returned as mature fish and were captured and reported COLLECTING COD EGGS ON A FISHING VESSEL One source of cod eggs hatched at the New England stations is the catch of the market fishermen. Spawntakers board the fishing boats, overhaul the fish, and save the eggs of such as are ripe. indicates a very large percentage of survivals and suggests the growing depend- ence on artificial propagation for the maintenance of the runs. In the case of marine hatching operations it is so difficult to prove bene- ficial results that their utility is doubted by some people. When the Bureau began the cultivation of the cod and the lobster many years ago, it proceeded on the principle that the effects of the fishermen’s improvidence could be coun- teracted by artificial propagation. The ultimate success of cod and lobster cul- SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 65 ture on the Atlantic coast was therefore confidently expected, and the expec- tations have been more than realized. Practical results of an unmistakable character were first manifested nearly twenty years ago, since which time a very lucrative shore cod fishery has been kept up on grounds that were entirely depleted or that had never contained cod in noteworthy numbers in the memory of the oldest inhabitants. There is much unsolicited testimony on this point from many people who have profited from the operations of the Maine and Massachusetts stations. The benefits have not been confined to the immediate LOBSTER AND COD HATCHERY AT BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE vicinity of the hatcheries, but have extended westward and southward along the Middle Atlantic coast and eastward along the whole coast of Maine. The benefits of lobster culture have been slower in appearing, owing, in part at least, to the less extensive operations and the excessive mortality to which the young are liable; but from all parts of the New England coast there are being received reports of more lobsters, particularly of small size, than have been seen for many years, and there is reason to believe that the long-continued decline of the lobster fishery has been arrested. 7/3 — $5 66 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES conomie results of great value have come from the transplanting of native aquatic animals into waters in which they are not indigenous and from the introduction of fishes of foreign countries into the United States. The supply of food and game fishes of every section of the country has thus been increased and enriched, fisheries of vast extent have been established, and the pleasures of angling have been greatly enhanced. Acclimatization BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF LEADVILLE, COLORADO, HATCHERY This station, 10,000 feet above sea level, in the Rocky Mountains, is devoted to the culture of the black-spotted, rainbow brook, and other trouts. In all the waters of the eastern, central, and southern parts of the United States the range of every important native food and game fish has been extended artificially. Especially extensive work has been done with the black basses (Micropterus), the crappies (Pomoxis), the rock bass (Ambloplites), the sunfishes (Lepomis), the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), the lake trout (Cris- tivomer namaycush), the landlocked salmon (Salmo sebago), and the catfishes (Ameiurus and Ictalurus). Among the more conspicuous examples of this class of work has been the stocking of the Potomac River with black basses, crappies, and catfishes. SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 67 Among the eastern fresh-water fishes that have been established and more or less widely colonized in the Rocky Mountains or in transmontane regions are the large-mouth black bass, the crappy, the yellow perch, several catfishes and sunfishes, and the brook trout. Sportsmen of all the Western States can now find excellent black-bass and brook-trout fishing. Colorado, which has known the brook trout only a few years, is thoroughly stocked and affords unsurpassed opportunities for anglers. So successful has been the work in that State that the Government now draws most of its supply of brook-trout eggs therefrom, CATCHING AND SORTING THE BROOD FISH AT A TROUT-CULTURAL STATION IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS and the progeny of Colorado fish are used for replenishing eastern waters from which the original stock was taken for introduction into Colorado. The most noteworthy results of the introduction of native fishes into new regions have been seen in the Pacific States and represent two contributions from the Atlantic seaboard—the shad and the striped bass. The economic outcome of the acclimatization of these fishes is without parallel in the entire history of migratory species. The colonizing of the shad on the Pacific coast was one of the greatest achievements in fish acclimatization. Aside from the important financial 65 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES results, the experiment was noteworthy because of certain changes that have occurred in the habits of the species, and because the feat of transporting shad fry across the continent at that early day was justly regarded as remarkable, and had a marked influence on the development of fish transportation, which has now attained such perfection. With the experiment were associated two of the pioneer fish-culturists of America, whose name and fame are known the world over—Seth Green and Livingston Stone. Relatively small plants of shad fry were made in the Sacramento River, California, in 1871, 1873, 1876, == STRIPPING AND FERTILIZING TROUT EGGS AT AESTATION IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 1877, 1878, and 1880, and in the Columbia River, between Oregon and Wash- ington, in 1885 and 1886, the aggregate for each stream being less than one million and only one-hundredth of the plants sometimes made in an east-coast river in a single season. In April, 1873, the first shad was taken in California, and shortly there- after many more were caught in the vicinity of San Francisco; by 1879 the fish had become numerous, and by 1886 it had become one of the most abun- dant food fishes of the State. In 1876 or 1877 shad were first taken in the SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 69 Columbia, so it is evident that an offshoot from the California colony soon migrated northward and had already established itself when the new emigrants arrived from the east eight or nine years later. By 1881 the fish seems to have become distributed along the coast of Washington, and in 1882 reached Puget Sound. It was nine years later, however, when the first pioneer was recorded from Fraser River, British Columbia, and the same year there was a report of shad in Stikine River, southeast Alaska. In 1904 a fine roe shad, caught at Kasilof, on Cook Inlet, was the first known arrival in that remote region. ‘To the southward the fish is found as far as Los Angeles County, and the present range of the species thus extends along about 4,000 miles of coast. It is not improbable that the migrations of the shad will extend still farther. The two great centers of the shad’s abundance are the Sacramento basin and the lower Columbia River, and it has been asserted that in either of these - waters more shad could be taken than in any other water course in the country. The catch affords an inadequate criterion of the shad’s abundance, for fishermen and dealers report that it would be easily possible, should the demand warrant it, to treble or quadruple the present yield, as most of the fish are now taken incidentally in apparatus set primarily for other species. Viewed from the purely business standpoint, the transplanting of shad to the Pacific coast has been a remarkably good investment. From the best information obtainable, the entire cost of the experiment was less than $4,000, while the aggregate catch for market in California, Oregon, and Washington to the end of 1967 was approximately 15,000,000 pounds, for which the fishermen received $330,000. The history of the introduction of the striped bass on the western seaboard is quite similar to that of the shad, and the result has been equally striking. In 1879, 135 young striped bass from New Jersey were deposited in San Francisco Bay, and in 1882 a plant of 300 small fish from the same State was made in the same place. These meager colonies found the waters of California fully as con- genial as did the shad, and the fish has shown an almost uninterrupted increase in abundance to the present time. From the San Francisco region the species has gradually spread up and down the coast, and its range may eventually equal that of the shad. Up to 1896 the fish had not been reported outside of California, but several years thereafter it began to run in some of the coast rivers of Oregon, and in the fall of 1906 half a dozen fine specimens were caught in traps at the mouth of the Columbia River, the first recorded from that stream. The striped bass, far removed from its ancestral home, has maintained the enviable reputation it enjoys in the East, and is freely recognized by its new friends as one of the best food and game fishes of the Pacific coast. A number of years ago the catch in California exceeded that of any other State, while now it surpasses that of any group of States along the eastern seaboard. The fish has become a prime favorite with anglers, and it is now probably the leading game fish of California. While it always commands a high price in the East, 7O THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES and is often to be ranked as a luxury, its abundance in California waters has so reduced the cost to consumers that even the most frugal can afford to eat it, and a comparison made some years ago showed that throughout the year the San Francisco dealers were underselling the New York dealers by many points. The economic importance of the introduction of the striped bass on the Pacific coast may be judged from the fact that the entire cost of transplanting was less than $1,000, while the value of the catch to the end of 1907 was about $925,000, a sum representing a yield of more than 16,500,000 pounds. The only fishes which the Western States have given to the remainder of the country are two trouts; but the transplanting of several other trouts is now in progress, and systematic and extensive efforts are being made to establish several of the Pacific salmons in the New England rivers. The foremost con- tribution of the West to the East is the rainbow trout. The transplanting of this species in regions east of the Rocky Mountains has been a conspicuous success: and has proved a decided boon to many communities. Its acclimatization by the General Government was first undertaken in 1880, although it is probable that some years prior thereto small plants had been made in new waters by State commissions or private persons. It has now been introduced into nearly every State and Territory, and has become one of the most generally known fishes in every part of the country. In Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, and throughout the Allegheny Mountain region its trans- planting has been followed by especially noteworthy results. Its position in the streams and lakes of the Eastern States is that of a substitute and not a rival of the brook trout. It is well adapted for the stocking of waters formerly inhabited by the brook trout, in which the latter no longer thrives on account of changed physical conditions; it is also suited to warmer, deeper, and more sluggish waters than the brook trout finds congenial. The anadromous steelhead trout of the Pacific coast has been established in Lake Superior and other parts of the Great Lakes as a result of plants of young fish made in 1896, and has also obtained a firm hold in a number of New England lakes, proving a very acceptable addition to the supply of food and game fishes. It readily adapts itself to a strictly fresh-water existence, and soon reproduces in its new habitat. The debt that sportsmen owe to the fishery service of the United States and the several States for their acclimatization work is heavy and increasing yearly, and the obligation is shared indirectly, but not the less actually, by hotel keepers, boatmen, merchants, landowners, and others. There could be cited numerous concrete examples of the varied benefits that have come to communities through the stocking of local waters with nonindigenous species. In some cases the improvement in the fishing has so increased the influx of people that land about the waters has increased several hundred per cent in value in a few years. SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK Hs Quite a number of Old World fishes have been introduced into American waters, and some of them have become well known in various parts of the country. Two European trouts, the brown trout and the Scotch lake trout, have been cultivated here for a score of years, and are now found in many private waters. The acclimatization of the Kuropean sea trout and the Swiss lake trout has also been effected. None of these fishes, however, has any superiority over native species, and the demand for them is decreasing. The Asiatic goldfish and the European golden ide or orf and tench are now very familiar ornamental species in America, but have little commercial value; the tench, however, is found in a few streams and reaches the markets in small numbers. Of all the exotic fishes, however, none is so well known, so widely distributed, so abundant, and so valuable as the carp, which was introduced from Germany upward of thirty years ago. This fish has excited a great deal of criticism, mostly unfriendly, and it is to-day regarded with disfavor by many people, chiefly anglers, because of real or supposed habits that are repre- hensible. As a commercial proposition, the bringing of the carp to America has been of immense benefit, for to-day it is one of the common food fishes of the country, it is regularly exposed for sale in every large city and innumerable small towns, it supports special fisheries in 15 States, and it is regularly taken for market in 35 States. ‘The sales at this time amount to fully 20,000,000 pounds annually, for which the fishermen receive $500,000. The principal carp fishery is in Hlinois, where fishermen have for years been reaping a golden harvest, finding a ready sale in the West and also sending large consignments to New York in special cars. The next important center is the western end of Lake Erie, in Ohio and Michigan, where large special ponds have been constructed and a peculiar form of cultivation has sprung up. Other important carp States are Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin. It is not as a great market fish, however, that the carp is destined to attain its highest importance among us, but as a fish for private culture and home consumption. ‘The number of farmers and small landowners who are alive to the benefits of private fish ponds is increasing at a very rapid rate, and hundreds of thousands of such in all parts of the country, but particularly in the great central region, will find in the carp a fish well adapted to their needs and conditions. It is probable that the commercial value of carp is insignificant compared with its importance as a food for other fishes. It is extensively eaten by many of our most highly esteemed food fishes and is the chief pabulum of some of them in some places. In a number of the best black-bass streams, like the Potomac and the Illinois, the carp is very abundant and is a favorite food of the young and adult bass, while in California the introduced striped bass has 72 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES from the outset subsisted largely on carp and may owe its remarkable increase to the presence of this food. The consumption of carp is certainly destined to increase greatly; but even if the catch reaches no higher point, the introduction of the carp into the United States will remain the leading achievement in fish acclimatization in recent times, and, with the exception of the original introduction of the same fish into Europe from Asia, the most important the world has known. Among the acclimatization experiments that have not yet been proved successful, but that there is every reason to believe will eventually become so, is the transplanting of the lobster (Homarus americanus) to the Pacific coast. There is probably no food animal of the eastern seaboard whose acclimatiza- tion on the Pacific coast would prove so great a boon as the lobster. As early as 1873 the Bureau made its first move to supply the deficiency, and up to 1889 five attempts to establish the species were made, the deposits being at various points from Monterey Bay to Puget Sound. No positive results having appeared, the experiment was renewed in the fall of 1906, when a special carload of brood lobsters, numbering more than all the previous plants combined, was dispatched to Puget Sound, and in 1907 a still more extensive plant, aggregating about 1,000 adult lobsters, was made in the same water. Further consign- ments will be made until the lobster is removed from the list of failures and recorded as a great financial as well as gastronomic success. The long-continued and systematic field and laboratory work of the Bureau has resulted in a most thorough knowledge of the distribution, variation, abundance, habits, etc., of the fishes and other creatures of the interior, coast- wise, and offshore waters of the United States, Hawaii, and Porto Rico—a knowledge which is indispensable to the Government in its fish-cultural work and to the various States and insular authorities in their legislative efforts to preserve their fishery resources. The practical results of this work are apparent in numerous specific instances. Biological Investigations and Expenments For a number of years the Bureau has been engaged in an endeavor to develop a practical method of fattening oysters. It is the custom of many oyster growers to transplant their oysters, shortly before putting them on the market, to beds where the natural supply of food is luxuriant, and oysters fatten rapidly. In many localities such favorable places are few or entirely lacking, and the oystermen are compelled to put inferior stock upon the market, and thus forfeit the full measure of profit. The experiments which have been carried on are intended to develop a method of producing these fattening beds artificially in localities where they do not naturally exist. By the use of commercial ferti- lizers it has been found possible to produce the desired abundance of oyster food, and the only important problem yet awaiting solution is that of materially increasing the output of the artificial claire employed for the experiments. Con- SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 73 siderable progress toward this end has been made recently, the yield of the claire in 1907 being 176 barrels, against 125 barrels in the preceding year; and, as with a given equipment the expenses of operation are not materially increased whatever the product, this increase, if it can be carried further, as present con- ditions indicate, will result in sufficient margin between the cost of the treatment and the increased value of the fattened oysters to warrant its recommendation as a commercial process. The oysters fattened by this method are as fine as any placed on the market, and have been used with satisfaction at some of the best hotels and clubs of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Upon two subjects in particular has the Bureau expended much energy and at last achieved results by persistently sounding the note of warning. The utmost efforts in artificial propagation can not save the shad fishery without the aid of laws to permit a certain number of spawning fish to reach the streams; while on the other hand no practicable protective laws can save the oyster sup- ply without cultural work to keep up the beds. The Bureau has no power to do more than hatch fish in the one case, devise methods of culture in the other, and ery out the needs of both; and it lies solely with the States to provide for the needs. North Carolina rose to the emergency of the shad situation a few years ago and asked the aid of the Bureau in determining the actual protection required by the shad, the actual condition of the fishery, and the possible remedies for a rapidly diminishing yield. The Bureau’s recommendations were asked for by the State legislature, and a commission was appointed to draft salutary laws, which have since gone into effect, confining gear to prescribed areas and leaving clear channels for the passage of the fish. Immediate result was seen at the Government hatchery in the Albemarle region. The collection of shad eggs in these waters in five years had dropped from 75 millions to 614 millions. The next year, which was the first of enforcement of the new laws, the collection was 25's millions, and in rg08 the most successful shad hatchery was in this State, the egg collections exceeding 55 millions. The oyster fishery has had a common history in all of the Southern States, of which Maryland, once the foremost in oyster production and the last to resort to systematic cultural measures, affords the most notable example. The laws controlling the fishery in Chesapeake Bay have been designed to protect the nat- ural beds, but have not encouraged or protected the oyster planter, and the natural beds, thus practically the sole reliance, in time failed to sustain the tremendous draft upon them. Between 1880 and 1897 the product fell 31.6 per cent; in 1904 it was 39 per cent less than in 1897. The Bureau had for many years pointed out the short-sighted policy that was resulting in the steady decline of the oyster industry, and was at length gratified to find that the State had taken heed of the warning and enacted a com- prehensive law favoring oyster planting. The work that has now been under- 74 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES taken by the Maryland Shell Fish Commission to remedy the alarming condition of the oyster grounds will be the most complete and accurate of its kind. It consists of the survey and delimitation, by the aid of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Bureau of Fisheries, of all natural oyster beds in Maryland waters, to be marked and set aside as public fishing grounds operated under the existing protective laws. All other suitable grounds will then be EN wea" THE OYSTER FLEET AT BALTIMORE Baltimore, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, is the leading oyster market of the world. Over 600 oyster vessels, carrying 3,000 men, land their catch here; and nearly 8,ooo men on shore are engaged in handling, shucking, canning, and shipping the oysters. ‘The quantity of oysters landed in Baltimore in a single season has sometimes reached nearly 7,000,000 bushels, worth about $3,500,000 reserved by the State to be leased to oyster planters, whose enterprise will be encouraged and their rights protected as was not possible heretofore. Up to 1898 there were few planted beds of oysters in Louisiana waters. Investigation of the oyster grounds by the Bureau in that year, however, led to the passage of beneficial laws and proved a general stimulus to oyster culture in that State, as is shown by the fact that some 20,000 acres of bottom were soon under cultivation. In 1906 the State Oyster Commission, still further to promote the local industry, again asked the Bureau’s assistance, and large SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 7 tn areas of unutilized bottom were examined to determine their productive capac- ity. The conditions were found to be exceptionally favorable, and experi- mental plants produced 3% to 4 inch oysters in quantities of 1,000 to 2,000 bushels per acre, within two years after the cultch was put down. In Barataria Bay, where there had been no oysters whatever, such promising beds were established that several hundred acres of adjacent bottom were immediately leased by prospective planters. Other localities, though they have so far shown no such conspicuous commercial enterprise, may be expected to prove equally productive. Experiments in sponge culture have been in progress for several years, and have now developed a practical system by which sponges may be produced from cuttings at a cost much less than that entailed in taking them from the natural beds. In view of the more rapid depletion of the natural beds which will undoubtedly result from recent changes in the methods of the fishery, the Bureau is convinced that the preservation of the American sponge industry will depend upon cultivation; and as it is estimated that about $1,500,000 worth of sponges were taken in Florida during the past year, the failure of the fishery would be a serious commercial loss to the State. In cooperation with the Rhode Island Fish Commission, the Bureau has developed new methods of lobster and soft-shell clam culture which are being applied with success in New England. Experiments with the hard-shell clam are now in progress at Beaufort. Important work recently undertaken is an effort to establish mussel culture in the Mississippi Valley. The supply of mussels in those waters, on which is based a pearl-button industry valued at about $5,000,000 per annum, with an investment of $6,000,000, is being rapidly exhausted, and the mussel fishermen and manufacturers recognize that without scientific cooperation of the Goy- ernment the business is doomed to early extinction. The Bureau in one season’s work has practically, though not conclusively, shown a method by which the pearl mussels can be propagated, and is demonstrating that the work can be carried on at a comparatively small expense in connection with the already established operations in rescuing fishes from the overflowed lands, the fish reclaimed being employed, without injury to themselves, in the dissemination of the larve of the mussels. There have been liberated 25,000 fish, bearing about 25,000,000 young mussels ready to drop and begin their independent existence, and already past the stage when they are most subject to fatality. The work is also capable of application to waters under private control and will probably become a source of respectable revenue to farmers and others whose property embraces streams, ponds, and lakes. The importance of this work is urgently insisted upon by the National Pearl Button Manufacturers’ Association, which embraces practically the entire capital invested in the business. 70 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES In the field of fish diseases great progress has been made in the extension of knowledge of the causes of many of the fatalities which sometimes make a clean sweep of the hatcheries and which heretofore could not be adequately coped with because their etiology was not understood. The services of the scientific staff in this regard have been not only of great benefit to the Gov- ernment, but are highly regarded and frequently availed of by State and private fish-culturists. Among the direct material aids rendered to fish culture in the \ We UU \ hi INH ih | Huh ; — Fe ——— THE FRESH-FISH FLEET AT T WHARF, BOSTON Larger quantities of fresh sea fish are landed at Boston than at any other port in the United States. The principal species are cod, cusk, haddock, hake, pollock, halibut, swordfish, and mackerel, together with lobsters, oysters, and clams. A day’s receipts of fresh fish from the grounds off the New England coast have sometimes exceeded 2,000,000 pounds past four or five years are the following: (1) Determination of the cause and remedy for the fatal malady known as the “ gas disease,’’ which at one station killed 1,200,000 brook-trout fry out of 1,300,000 on hand; (2) isolation of a bacterial organism producing a fatal disease in trout, and discovery of a possible remedy; (3) determination of the cause of a fatal protozoan disease in trout; (4) discovery of a remedy for the diatom disease of lobster eggs and larve; (5) studies of the causes for the death of fish in captivity and the determination SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK Hof in a number of cases of responsible peculiarities in the water supply; (6) studies of the character of streams and the effects of various conditions on fishes, which have supplied much information on the subject to the public; (7) determina- tion of the effects on fishes of galvanized iron and other metallic containers used in transportation of fish and fry, and (8) indication of certain undesirable types of vessels. THE FISHING FLEET IN GLOUCESTER HARBOR Gloucester, Mass., is the leading fishing port in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 6,000 persons are employed on the fishing vessels and in the various shore industries dependent on the fisheries, and the entire population of 26,000 literally depends on the sea for its existence The importance to the fishing interests of the work of the Bureau in connection with the economic fisheries is widely ap- preciated and freely acknowledged. ‘The statistical inquiries of the Bureau afford the only adequate basis for determining the con- dition and trend of the fisheries and the results of legislation, protection, and cultivation. Among the numerous special matters in which the Bureau has benefited the fisheries the following may be mentioned: By bringing to the attention of American fishermen new methods and new apparatus, new fisheries have sometimes been established and new fields exploited. Commercial Fisheries 78 THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES By the introduction of gill nets with glass-ball floats for taking cod the winter cod fishery of New England was revolutionized. In a single season shortly after the use of such nets began a few Cape Ann (Gloucester) fishermen took by this means over 8,000,000 pounds of large-sized fish, and as much as $50,000 has sometimes been saved annually in the single item of bait. By the dissemination of information regarding new fishing grounds impor- tant fisheries have been inaugurated. Thus when the abundance of halibut off SALT COD DRYING IN THE FLAKE YARD OF A GLOUCESTER FISH-PACKING ESTABLISHMENT the coast of Iceland was made known by the Bureau a fishery was begun which yielded from $70,000 to $100,000 annually to the New England fishermen. The Bureau has experimented with various unused or little-used products in order to determine their economic value and to suggest the best ways of util- izing them. Less than fifteen years ago there was practically no market for the silver hake or whiting (Merluccius bilinearis), and immense quantities inci- dentally taken in pound nets and other apparatus were thrown away. The 3ureau pointed out the possibility of preparing a marketable salt whiting; ‘and SOME RESULTS OF THE WORK 79 it is a significant fact that in a few years the sales of this fish in New England have increased from about 100,000 pounds to 5,000,000 pounds. Owing to the appalling mortality among the crews of the New England fishing vessels, owing in large part to the foundering of the vessels at sea, the Bureau many years ago undertook the introduction into the offshore fisheries of a type of craft which would combine large carrying capacity and great speed with enhanced safety. By correspondence, discussions in the daily press, per- sonal interviews, exhibition of models, and finally by the actual construction of FISHERY SCHOONER GRAMPUS Built by the United States Government as an object lesson. ‘The general adoption of this type of swift, safe vessel in the offshore fisheries has resulted in great saving of life and property, and has otherwise promoted the fisheries. a full-sized schooner (the Grampus) with the requisite qualities, the Bureau was able to inaugurate a momentous change in the architecture of fishing vessels, so that for a long time the New England schooners have been constructed on the new lines, with a consequent minimizing of disasters and a decided increase in efficiency. For other fisheries and regions the Bureau has likewise advocated improved types of vessels and boats especially adapted to local conditions, and has published plans and specifications embodying the results of studies of the fishing flotilla of the world. The results of the Bureau's efforts in this line, in so §' THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES saving life and property, in increasing the usefulness of the vessels, and in improving the quality of the catch as landed can not be estimated, but the beneficial effects may be partly appreciated when it is stated that during the ten years ended in 1883, when the old types of vessels were in use, there were lost by foundering from the port of Gloucester alone 82 vessels, valued at more than $400,000, with their crews of 895 men; while during the ten years ending in 1907 the losses from this cause aggregated only a fourth as many vessels and men. S iF Ja’09 1G i. Fp re AR RRR — n+ 0s Tat aparece nN