416 



FISHES OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



view of the lack of knowledge of the requirements of those fishes, but they are 

 now known to have been entirely useless expenditures of time and money. 

 Beginning in 1877 and continuing for four years, the federal fishery bureau 

 donated eggs of the quinnat salmon (Oncorhynchus tschaivytscha) to the state 

 authorities. The eggs were incubated at the Swannanoa and Morganton 

 hatcheries, and 748,000 young were planted in the headwaters of the French 

 Broad, Catawba, and Yadkin rivers. In 1883 it was reported that no apparent 

 results had attended this work, and further efforts in this line were abandoned. 

 In 1881 the state received from the federal government 20,000 eggs of the 

 Atlantic salmon (Salmo solar), which were hatched at Morganton with an 

 approximate loss of 25 per cent, and the resulting fry were deposited in the 

 mountain streams the same year. As the natural habitat of this salmon includes 

 no streams south of New York, the waters of North Carolina were manifestly 

 unsuited for the species and the attempt was almost necessarily a failure, not 

 so much because the mountain streams are not congenial as because of the high 



Fig. 188. Rainbow Trout. Salmo irkleus. 



temperature and muddy character of the rivers in the Piedmont and coastal 

 plain regions through which the salmon would have to pass while going to and 

 from their spawning grounds 



A salmon from the planting of which results were much more likely is the 

 landlocked salmon (Salmo sehago) of Maine, which inhabits lakes and streams, 

 and has lost the migratory instinct. Two lots of eggs were donated to North 

 Carolina by Professor Baird, and the fry hatched therefrom, to the number of 

 28,300, were planted in 1878 and 1881 in the Dan, Linville, Mayo and Johns 

 rivers, in various creeks in McDowell and Burke counties, and in numerous 

 ponds near Charlotte, Greensboro, Morganton, Salisbury, and other places. No 

 results from these plants were ever noted. Probably the only waters in North 

 Carolina in which it is reasonable to expect a satisfactory outcome from the 

 planting of landlocked salmon are the artificial lakes on the property of the 

 Toxaway Company in Transylvania County; and the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries 

 has recently planted fry in one of these lakes. 



