FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES OF INDIANA. TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: F 6546.40 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY DANIEL B. FEARING 30 JUNE 1915 To the Hon. The General Assembly of the State of Indiana : I herewith submit my first annual report, and respectfully request that you provide for the publishing of such a number of copies as will meet the necessities of correspondence arising from this new industry— equal to the number of copies accorded to the State Agricultural report. CALVIN FLETCHER, Commissioner of Fisheries for Indiana. REPORT. To the Honorable, the General Assembly of Indiana: Appointed to the office of Commissioner of Fisheries by Governor Porter under the authority of the Act for the creation of the office of Commissioner of Fisheries, approved March 26, 1881, it becomes my duty to report to you the results of my inquiries and labors in the discharge of the duties set forth in that Act. Whilst our State lacks extensive lakes, mountain streams and very broad and long rivers, it enjoys peculiar advantages in the multitude and general distribution of small lakes in the northern portion and in countless miles of small streams and moderate-sized, quiet-flowing rivers everywhere. To these resources may be added the rights the State holds re pectively with Kentucky, Illinois and Michigan in the Ohio and Wabash rivers, and in Lake Michigan. An approximate estimate, based on the most trustworthy information, gives the shore line of the waters of the State as 30,000miles. Every foot of this immense distance-greater than the belt of the earth-was at no distant period well stocked with as good varieties of native fishes as are found under the same conditions of physical geography on this continent. The personal knowledge of many of your honorable body will bear witness to the truth of this assertion. While to a certain extent we are deprived of the shad, the salmon, the trout, and the many valuable sea fish so abundantly possessed by the New England and seaboard States, we have been compensated by the presence of what Prof. Jordan classes as sunfishes, which includes the incomparable large and small mouthed black bass, the croppie, the grass bass, the rock bass, and all kinds of sunfishes. We also have of the trout eight different varieties, and of the suckers twenty-two kinds, and of catfishes fifteen kinds. Indeed, our waters still exhibit, to the intelligent naturalist, one hundred and eighty-six distinct fishes, which include about all that are requisite to afford variety of sport and food at all seasons, if nature is permitted to keep up the supply. To the assiduous and learned labors of Prof. D. S. Jordan, of our State University, at Bloomington, we are indebted for the list of classified fishes belonging to our waters. The scientific and common names, together with their habitat, are so concisely given by him that abbreviation is impossible, and I append the same as of great value in showing our present available resources. The contemplation of this source of wealth would be highly gratifying did we not know the countless methods of diminishing it by dynamite and other destructive agencies. Laws for the protection of fish in other States indicate the many illegitimate means of destruction, such as pound nets, trap nets, gill-nets, set-nets, fyke fishing, fish-berries, dynamite cartridges, etc., all of which, besides the seine, the gig or spear, and the gun, have been and are still being used in our State with impunity. To prevent the annihilation of our fishes rigid protection becomes necessary, and in that will be found the most economical means of propagation. It has been ascertained that the roe of many varieties of fish exceeds 400,000 eggs-that 100,000 is produced by a greater number-and that a single pair of black bass could, if their eggs were wholly undisturbed, populate a stream of one hundred miles in extent in two seasons. This much as to the fecundity of fishes. Against the account must be placed all the wonderful casualties to which eggs and young fry are subject-man crowning the array of adversaries. Yet, granting the loss of the majority of natural increase, the margin left is so large as to encourage great exertions to preserve it from illegitimate means of destruction. Those who have systematically observed, fix a period of five years for a mature growth of some varieties, while in other varieties we can hope for favorable returns in three and four years. Meanwhile judicious laws must be well. executed or disappointment will follow. I am aware that the above theory of natural increase is in opposition to the views of that skilled and reliable fish-culturist, Seth Green, who contends that extermination would be the result if the natural increase were not largely supplemented by artificial pro |