NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SALMON AND TROUT. 379 



with which they sweep every part of the river, especially the partially- 

 stagnant fresh-water lagoons, or sloughs, as they are called in California, 

 where the fish collect iu myriads to spawn. With these nets they catch 

 vast quantities of fish of all sizes, and so destructive has their fishing 

 been on the Sacramento, that all the fish of that river except salmon 

 are disappearing with unexampled rapidity. 



It is owing to this kind of fishing that the returns of the fyke-nets 

 have diminished so alarmingly the last few years. The Chinese have 

 been at it for seven or eight years, and if they keep on three or four 

 years more at this rate, the small fish of the Sacramento will be practi- 

 cally exterminated. I had no means of ascertaining with any exact- 

 ness how many Chinese fisherman there were on the river, but there are 

 a large number, and Mr. lugersoll said that they were increasing every 

 year. The most of their fresh fish they send to the San Francisco 

 Chinese markets as soon as caught, but they also dry a great quantity 

 of them on bars and floors prepared for the purpose. These are both 

 eaten by themselves and sent packed in barrels to the Chinese quarter 

 in San Francisco. While at Eio Nita in February, 1873, I visited a 

 Chinese fishing-station on the Sacramento River. It was located about 

 80 rods above the Rio Xita steamboat-landing, and consisted of a nest 

 of Chinese fishing-boats numbering seven small boats and three large 

 ones. There was also on the shore, just across the road, two old tumble- 

 down buildings with drying-bars and floors near by iu the open air, 

 where some of the fishermen lived and attended to the drying of the 

 fish. The small boats were small, flat-bottomed dories, square at the 

 stern, sharp at the bow, about 15 feet long, and strongly built. 



The large boats were also strongly built, but narrow and pointed at 

 both ends, and constructed in the Chinese fashion. Two of the three 

 large boats had one mast, and the other one had two masts, considerably 

 raking, with Chinese sails, which were not like anything used in this 

 country for sails. Xearly amidships, but a little nearer one end than 

 the other, was a tent in which the Chinamen lived. There was also 

 considerable space in the hold of this really Chinese junk, which added 

 a good deal to their house-room. 



The whole air and look of these crafts was decidedly foreign, and I 

 might say oriental. 



If I understand their method rightly, the small boats are to visit 

 the sloughs and various fishing points when they go out to dra'.v the 

 seine, and the larger boats are really only movable dwellings and store- 

 houses, where they live and receive the fish that are brought in by the 

 small boats, and which, of course, they move from place to place on the 

 river as the exigencies of the changing fishing seasons may require. 

 Yours, respectfully, 



LIVmCSTON STONE. 



Prof. S. F. Baird. 



