XXXVIII REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Califoruia commission, followed in subsequent years by transmissions by 

 the U. S. Fish Commission. The Sacramento Eiver may now be consid- 

 ered as fairly supplied with fish, numerous adults having been taken 

 during the year, although they have been sold surreptitiously, in con- 

 sequence of a prohibitory law. It is to be hoped that with a few addi- 

 tional shipments the stock will soon be self-sustaining, and possibly that 

 the adjacent rivers north and south will receive an ample supply. 



For the Mississippi Valley, we have a very satisfactory result of the 

 operations of the Fish Commission in the Ohio Eiver at Louisville, 

 where several hundreds of fish were captured in 1878 and exposed for 

 sale in the Louisville market. The citizens are naturally jubilant at this 

 great addition to their food resources, and stoutly maintain that, com- 

 pared with the shad of the Connecticut, the Delaware, and the Susque- 

 hanna, those of the Ohio are by far the finest. Should this run con- 

 tinue, I hope to give further information in regard to it in a future 

 report. 



As nearly as we can ascertain, these fish have all been derived from 

 a deposit of 30,000 made in the Allegheny River by Seth Green, and 

 200,000 by Mr. Wm. Clift in the year 1872, at Salamanca, in Western 

 New York, in both cases in behalf and at the expense of the U. S. 

 Commission. 



For the purpose of ascertaining the facts in regard to the occurrence 

 of shad at points in the Mississippi Valley other than Louisville, the 

 commissioners of fisheries of Kentucky caused a circular of inquiry to 

 be published in the principal newspapers, asking to be informed on this 

 subject. Several responses were received, and among them one from 

 Mr. John F. Oliver, of Steubenville, Ohio, who on the 25th of Septem- 

 ber wrote to say that a number of shad were caught in the Ohio at that 

 place early in the season, on their way up, very many having been 

 brought into market. He urges the importance of legislative measures 

 for the protection of these fish, at least for a time, stating that two fish- 

 ermen at Wing and Wing Rock, three miles above Steubenville, on the 

 West Virginia side of the river, caught with hoop or set nets six or seven 

 bushels of shad. 



Dr. Paul Sears, of Mount Carmel, 111., also writes to say that parties 

 fishing with set nets in March, April, May, and June, caught what they 

 supposed to be a new species of hickory shad {Pomolobus mediocris), but 

 which he found on examination a different variety, in not having the 

 lower jaw protruding as in the hickory shad, and in being thicker below 

 the dorsal fin. These are points in which the true shad differs from 

 its ally, and render the fact of its occurrence at Mount Carmel unques- 

 tionable. 



In addition to these statements, Mr. George Spangler announced on 

 the 3d of May the capture of about a dozen shad near Madison, Ind. 

 The first sold for a trifle, but the price rose considerably when the fish 

 were identified. 



