2 REPORT OF STATE BIOLOGIST. 
SECOND CONSIGNMENT OF EASTERN OYSTERS. 
Since the first consignment in 1896, the United States Fish 
Commissioner, George M. Bowers, has been liberal enough to 
present the state with ten barrels more of the variety known 
as Princess Bays, making in all thirty-two barrels of eastern 
oysters donated the state and planted in Yaquina Bay. 
Through the courtesy of President John J. Valentine, of the 
Wells, Fargo Company, this second consignment was brought 
from New York to Yaquina free of charge. The United States 
Government bore the expense of transporting the first con- 
signment. 
A telegram from Auburn, California, received at Eugene, 
October 30, advised the writer that the oysters would pass 
Sacramento that night, bringing them into Albany on the 
morning of November 1, where they were met and arrange- 
ments made with the courteous officials of the Corvallis and 
Eastern Railroad to have them unloaded at Oysterville. They 
were planted the next morning, some with the former plant, 
and some farther up the bay in deep water. This consign- 
ment left New York City on October 25; they were, there- 
fore, just eight days en route. Not a single dead oyster was 
found in the entire lot. The consignment weighed in the 
vicinity of two thousand five hundred pounds. 
The small sum ($300) appropriated by our last legislature 
for this work having been nearly exhausted, the United 
States Fish Commissioner, George M. Bowers, has practically 
consented to honor bills representing the expenses of next 
summer’s work. This generosity on the part of the fish com- 
missioner is highly appreciated, for, otherwise, the work would 
be at a standstill during the coming summer, at which time 
it is now intended to make a thorough trial of the concrete 
pond constructed last season. 
CONDITIONS OF THE NATIVE OYSTER INDUSTRY. 
Yaquina Bay oystermen get at present $2.50 to $2.75 per 
sack for native oysters, a San Francisco firm haying con- 
tracted with most of the oystermen for this season’s output 
at the latter figure. The oysters on the native beds are so 
closely worked now that one-half a sack on a tide is consid- 
