336 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



many were carried through the broken levees, the percentage of loss 

 being heavy. In 18S3 about 1,000,000 were taken and hatched at the 

 station and planted iu the McCloud. Since then artificial hatching 

 has ceased, aud the number of salmon hatched from natural spawning 

 in the river has been almost nothing. Never since 1882 could I call 

 together more than three or four young salmon, and more often I would 

 find none at all. Returns from the planting of 1881 have been beyond 

 the most sanguine expectations, and millions of eggs could easily have 

 been taken from salmon iu the McCloud this season; but unless artifi- 

 cial hatching is again brought into operation in our rivers, our can- 

 neries must close, the Indians must sufier, aud our beautiful mountain 

 streams must soon have no salmon. 



Comparatively few salmon h'ave been up the Little Sacramento and 

 Pitt Eivers this season. The blasting operations of the railroad along 

 the line of the Little Sacramento have prevented the spawning salmon 

 from ascending the stream as usual, quite a number having begun the 

 ascent, but finding the gravel-beds covered and a general disturbance 

 of the water, after a few days they turned back and came to the Mc- 

 Cloud. The Pitt Eiver received small runs late this fall ; but for one 

 salmon that goes up the Pitt a hundred ascend the McCloud. 



Probably no salmon that deposit their eggs in the McCloud, Little 

 Sacramento, or Pitt Rivers ever return to the ocean. On their arrival 

 here they are generally of a silvery color, which soon deepens to a dark 

 red ; and after coming on the riffies and beginning to spawn, thej" fail 

 rapidly. In washing the gravel their tails become white and thread- 

 bare, so to speak ; soon a fungus covers their fins, which become stiff 

 and of little use to the fish ; parasites collect in the gills and throat ; 

 their eyes sink deep into the head ; aud their whole appearance changes 

 greatly in a few days. Even in this condition they seem to care for 

 nothing but to remain near the bed of gravel where their eggs are de- 

 posited, which they do until driven back by stronger fish or the swift 

 current. When unable to remain longer they slowly drift down the 

 river, with their heads up-stream, sometimes making quick darts with 

 the current for a short distance, and then again facing up-stream. 

 Often when driven near shore they swim to quiet places where the 

 water moves slowly, and remain sometimes for two or three days with 

 very little movement. At last they will start suddenly, lash the water 

 into a foam, and sometimes jump their length out of water ; but soou 

 sink to the bottom or float down the river dead. 



It is possible that some of the smaller male salmon that milt near 

 the ocean find their way back to it alive and are saved by tlie salt 

 water. From the river here I have taken salmon that were badly dis- 

 eased, and by a few applications of salt water they greatly revived. 



United States Trout Ponds, 



Baird, Shasta Gouniy, California^ November 24, 1886. 



