REPORT OF STATE FISH COMMISSIONERS, ETC. 943 



sible, if the assumption of a four years' period is correct. K five years 

 are required, then we must look to the stock of 200,000 iu 1872 exclu- 

 sively." (^ew Hampshire Fish Commissiou Report, 1878, p. 33.) 



CALIFORNIA. 



" Shad, in their season, are becoming quite numerous in the Sacra- 

 mento River. The experiment of their importation to this coast has re- 

 sulted satisfactorily. The river is of proper temperature, and furnishes 

 an abundance of food for the young fish before they go to the ocean. 

 There can be no doubt that the first shad brought from the Hudson 

 River in 1871 have been to the ocean, returned and spawned. No shad 

 were placed in this river during the years 1874 and 1875 ; yet shad two 

 years old were quite numerous this year, and they must have been the 

 product of the first importation. 



" It may be safely asserted that we now have shad born iu the Sacra- 

 mento. As it is illegal to take this fish prior to December of this year, 

 probably there has been no systematic fishing for them, yet numbers 

 have been accidentally caught in traps and nets ; probably not less than 

 1,000 were thus taken during the winter and spring of 1877." (New 

 Hampshire Fish Commissioner Report, 1878, p. 35.) 



