SALMON HATCHING ON m'cLOUD EIVER, CALIFORNIA, 1878. 763 



One circumstance must be mentioned here which, though at first it 

 seems unimportant enough, wouhl be attended with the most serious con- 

 sequences if not provided against. I refer to the diminution of the moss 

 supply. Little by little, each year for seven years, we have encroached 

 upon the supply of moss within our reach. This year we had to go away 

 beyond the Sierra Nevada range to the sage-brush region of Shasta Val- 

 ley to get our moss, and I am informed by the moss-gatherers that even 

 that source of sui^i^ly is now exhausted. To a New Englander, at least, 

 the question of the moss-supi)ly would seem trivial enough, and if, as is 

 very unlikely, ho coidd not get moss within a mile he would be willing 

 to go two miles for it if necessary. But the question is not so easily 

 settled in a dry country like California, and it is undoubtedly a fact that 

 there is not within a hundred miles of the United States fishery on the 

 McCloud Eiver an accessible spot where moss can be obtained next year 

 in any considerable qaantity. It may, therefore, become necessary next 

 year to meet the subject in some new manner, probably by shipjDiug the 

 moss from the Eastern States or Oregon, or sending an expedition to 

 the neighborhood of Lake Tahoe for it, a distance by the traveled route 

 of about five hundred miles. 



I will close this report by making a crude statement of the work which 

 was done at the fishery the last forty days preceding the loading of the 

 second car on the 5th day of October. During this time we caught and 

 examined, one by one, nearly 200,000 salmon. We took and impregnated 

 at least 14,000,000 eggs. We went over almost daily the 14,000,000 

 eggs and picked out the dead ones. We washed and picked over, almost 

 sprig by sprig, 220 bushels of moss. Our Indians collected and brought 

 in on their backs four tons of ferns for outside packing, sometimes going 

 two miles to get them, and we packed and crated, and loaded into the 

 car at Eedding eight or nine million salmon eggs, in addition to making 

 new wire trays, packing-boxes, &c., «&c., and doing the thousand little 

 things which are constantly coming uj) to be done at a place like the 

 fishery. All this work required an average of ten white men and twenty 

 Indians for the forty days referred to. 



Supplementary to this report will be found the following tables : 



(1.) Table showing the observations taken of wind, weather, and tem- 

 perature for the season of 1878. 



(2.) Table showing the daily number of salmon eggs taken and sal- 

 mon spawned. 



(3.) Table showing the weights of salmon spawned. 



(4.) Table showing the distribution of the eggs. 



(5.) Catalogue of collection made for the Smithsonian Institution. 



LIVINGSTON STONE. 



