BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 315 



State are very desirable fish for the trout breeder, inasmuch as they 

 are suniiner spawners and grow rapidly, are easily tauiiht to feed, and 

 will readily- take food from the bottom as well as in transit. They do 

 not bite each other as much as do the common brook trout [Salvelinus 

 fontinalls), and live quite harmoniously together. My experience this 

 year in hatching their eggs was somewhat unusual. I took the spawn 

 ou June 21, and in seventeen days the eye-specks were plainly visible; 

 in twenty-five days, or on July 16, they hatched. The tem^ierature of 

 the water varied from 52° Fahr. at night to 62° during- the middle of 

 the day. Part of the time the eggs were buried in mud from a freshet 

 that had flooded my hatchery, but I did not lose any on that account. 

 They feed like little pigs. 1 never used water of so high a temperature 

 before. At my other hatcheries the temperature was 45° and 52° ; in 

 either case" the eggs did well, but were of course longer in hatching* 

 The best results I ever had in feeding were at Buffalo Springs, in South 

 Park [Park County', Colorado], where I fed them on finely chopped suck- 

 ers — bones, fins, heads, entrails, and everything. The water was cold, 

 41° Fahr,, but when fed on suckers the trout grew at an astonishing 

 rate; manj' of them, which I sold in the market at nine months old, 

 averaged 4 and 5 ounces each, dressed. Had I possessed warmer water 

 and such an abundance of fish-food, I believe I could have done still 

 better." 



Catfish and shad in California. — Mr. William Utter, writing 

 from Campo Seco, Calaveras County, California, ou August 12, 1880, 

 states that there are millions of cattish in the Mokelumne Eiver, and that 

 during the summer he had caught a number of fine shad, some of them 

 weighing as much as 3 pounds apiece. 



Spanish mackerel abundant in summer at Galveston. — Mr. 

 Henry L. Labatt, writing from Galveston, Tex., on September 29, 188G, 

 says : " Vv'e have rare sport here in July and August catching Spanish 

 mackerel with hooks and lines. This fishing from the wharves in our 

 harbor is carried on during midsummer with abundant results." 



Young shad in the Housatonic River, Connecticut. — The 

 fish commissioners of Connecticut, in a letter from l^ew Haven, dated 

 October 11, 1886, spoke of having forwarded to the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion 40 young fish taken on October 10, with a hook, from the canal at 

 the dam at Birmingham, ou the Housatonic River, and asked whether 

 the young fish were not probably some of the shad planted by the U. 

 S. Fish Commission messenger above the dam on May 21, 1886. Dr. 

 Tarleton H. Bean, replying on October 22, stated that these young fish 

 were all shad. 



Shad in the Mississippi at Me3ipiiis. — Mr. W. W. McDowell, 

 fish commissioner for Tennessee, writing from Memphis, Tenn., Septem- 

 ber 15, 1886, says : " Last April we caught a good many shad in the 

 Mississippi River, near the mouth of Wolf River, about a mile above 



