Report of the commissioner for 1875-1876.

  • United States Fish Commission
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the commissioner for 1875-1876. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/1102 page 4
    coast inquiry, the subject of the invertebrate marine animals has been in charge of Prof. A. E. Verrill, with assistants varying in different years; that of the vertebrates, in charge of Mr. G. Brown Goode; Mr. J. W. Milner, assistant fish commissioner, while rendering aid in the general details of the fish-producing department, has entire charge of everything connected with the hatching and distribution of the shad, as has Mr. Charles G. Atkins of the Sea- and Landlocked salmon estab- lishments in Maine, and Mr. Livingston Stone of the salmon-fishing sta- tion on the McCloud Biver. To all of these gentlemen I am happy thus to render a public acknowledgment for hearty and efficient service. To Mr. T. B. Ferguson, the very able commissioner of Fisheries of the State of Maryland, I am indebted for most important co-operation in the hatching of shad and salmon for distribution throughout the country, his machinery and hatching establishment having been freely at my com- mand, and his men employed at various times in the transportation of the latter fish. The aid of other State Fish commissioners will be referred to hereafter. * The difficulty of confining the annual report of operations to the cardinal year has been already explained, the shad-hatching work for a given season alone commencing and finishing between January and December. The other branches have usually been considered in each report from their commencement to their close, which consequently involves the carrying of certain topics into the following year. The last published report of the Commission, or the third, embraced the seasons of 1873-74 and 1874-75; the present one (or the fourth) will be less extensive, but while bringing the history of a certain portion of the operations up to the beginning of 1877, will also include some matters that should have appeared in a preceding volume but which was not furnished in time by the authors. The history of the operations of the Commission, therefore, in the present volume will, as usual, be given under the two heads of the Inquiry into the Sea and Lake Fisheries, and the Propagation of Food-Fishes—the former covering the whole of the years 1875 and 187C; the latter, 187G and the early part of 1877. B—INQUIRY INTO THE DECREASE OF FOOD-FISHES. 2.—INVESTIGATIONS IN AND OPERATIONS OF 1875. The successive centers from which investigations into the subject re- ferred to were prosecuted have already been mentioned as being at Wood’s noil, Eastport, Portland, and Noank. Wood’s Holl was again selected as a station in 1875, as the interval of four years which had elapsed since the commencement of the work at the same place rendered it probable that a second visit at this time would give the means for determining the amount of variation in the fish-supply. An additional object in taking this station was its convenience in securing material tor the fisheries display of the International Exhibition at Philadelphia in
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