IXX REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The experience of salmon-culturists in Europe goes to show that the 

 Salmo salar will not thrive where the water is of a higher temperature 

 than 60°, or at most 65°, during the summer-season. There are few of 

 the rivers of the United States that do not reach a higher temperature 

 than that, especially those from Cape Cod southward. Indeed, experi- 

 ments prosecuted during the period of shad-hatching in the Connecticut 

 and the Hudson show that the waters there exhibit a temperature of 80^ 

 as early as the 1st of July. 



For this reason, probably, as far as our reliable information goes, the 

 salmon in olden times did not occur west of the Connecticut, or at least of 

 the Housatonic Eiver, the assumption of its existence in the Hudson rest- 

 ing upon the statement of Heudrick Hudson, to the effect that he had cap- 

 tured salmon in nets at the mouth of the river in August. There is, how- 

 ever, no question, as suggested by Mr. J. C. Brevoort, but that reference 

 was had by him to the weak-lish, [Cynoscion regalis,) which has much of 

 the appearance of the salmon, and with its allied species is frequently 

 called salmon, salmon-trout, &c,; the known habits of the salmon entirely 

 precluding the idea that it could have been seen by Hudson under the 

 circumstances mentioned. 



In the Sacramento fish, however, we probably have a species which 

 will answer the purpose on our eastern coast, as far south as the James, 

 and it is proposed to devote the greater part of the supply of eggs 

 received from Mr. Stone toward stocking the waters of the Hudson, the 

 Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and possibly the 

 streams still farther south which head in the Alleghanies. The Hudson, 

 the Delaware, and the Susquehanna appear pre-eminently adapted to 

 these fish, as the first dams occur at a considerable distance from their 

 mouths, respectively, and arrangements will doubtless be made for suit- 

 able fish- ways before there is any probability of the return of the young 

 salmon from the sea. 



It is also proposed to try the experiment of introducing the Sacramento 

 salmon into the waters on the southern side of the great lakes, where 

 the temperature is comparatively high, and the conditions otherwise 

 favorable for the western salmon. 



Whether this fish will thrive in the Mississippi Eiver, it is, of course, 

 impossible to tell, although it is proposed to make the esj)eriment 

 in this case also. Salmon penetrate the Columbia, Frazer, and 

 Yukon Rivers to a very great distance from their mouths, and it is not 

 at all impossible that in the Mississippi, with the absence of any ob- 

 structions for a long distance, or of any current materially greater than 

 the tides of the sea, the fish would make their way without experiencing 

 the exhaustion which they manifest in the western waters, where they 

 are obliged to surmount so many barriers. Fish are necessarily contin- 

 ually in motion, and this, when not requiring violent efforts, as in 

 ascending dams, is not more exhausting in a river than in the ocean. 



As far as the sojourn of the California salmon in the Gulf of Mex- 



