This colorful chart details oyster fishing beds throughout Chesapeake Bay and part of Chincoteague Bay in remarkably fine detail. The map locates Washington, D.C., Annapolis, Baltimore and Philadelphia in a street grid pattern. It locates areas where oyster gathering is authorized, and by which method, as shown by the color coded key at upper left to include Dredging, Scraping and Tonging. The legend also locates Compact and Scattered Reefs. By the 1870's, Maryland's oyster fields were becoming severely depleted, which led to oyster management efforts in the form of laws and regulations. The map is still bound into a bulletin of the U.S. Fish Commission containing 12 reports:

1. Bibliography of the Salmon of Alaska and Adjacent Regions, by Tarleton Bean
2. Life History of the Salmon, by Tarleton Bean
3. On the Viviparous Fishes of the Pacific Coast of North America, by Carl H. Eigenmann
4. Description of a New Sucker (Pantosteus Jordani) from the Upper Missouri Basin, by Barton W. Evermann
5. The Fishes of Texas and the Rio Grande Basin, Considered Chiefly with Reference to Their Geographical Distribution, by Barton W. Evermann and William C. Kendall
6. Report on the Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, by Marshall McDonald
7. List of Fishes Collected at Sea Isle City during the Summer of 1892, by H. P. Moore
8. Summary of Fishery Investigations Conducted in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea from July 1, 1888, to July 1, 1892, by the U. S. Fish Commission Steamer Albatross, by Richard Rathbun
9. The Fyke Nets and Fyke-Net Fisheries of the United States, with Notes on the Fyke Nets of Other Countries, by Hugh M. Smith
10. Economic and Natural-History Notes on Fishes of the Northern Coast of New Jersey, by Hugh M. Smith
11. The Oyster Industry of Maryland, by Charles H. Stevenson
12. A Review of the Embiotocidae, by Albert B. Ulrey and C. H. Eigenmann

489 pp. with 118 plates. Quarto, hardbound in dark brown cloth with gilt title on spine.

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Condition: B+

The map, in vivid color, has light toning along one fold, a small puncture in a blank area of the map image, and a 1.7" binding tear that has been closed with archival tape. Contents are mostly clean and tight and the covers show minimal wear.