74 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
An inquiry conducted by the United States Fish Commission in 1892 placed that 
bureau in possession of information showing the extent of the shad fishery in every 
river of the Pacific States. It was ascertained that in the year named 660,000 pounds 
of shad were marketed, the value of the same to the fishermen being about $27,000. 
Reports received during the present year indicate a catch of perhaps a million 
pounds, and it seems reasonable to anticipate a steady increase in the production 
with the improved facilities for shipment and the growing demand for fresh fish in 
the rising towns adjacent to the coast rivers. A careful estimate places the total 
value of the shad catch on the Pacific Coast to date at $145,000, representing over 
3,000,000 pounds, while the aggregate outlay for all purposes connected with the 
introduction of the fry was less than $4,000. This is certainly a satisfactory invest- 
ment of the people’s money. 
The absence of a special scientific inquiry precludes the possibility of chronicling 
the changes which have probably been wrought in the habits of the shad as a result 
of the changed physical surroundings, thermic conditions, enemies and food supply. 
It may be noted, however, that the characteristic habit on the east coast of periodi- 
cally ascending the rivers for the purpose of spawning, and of returning, after the 
completion of that process, to the open sea, where the principal part of the life of 
the fish is spent, appears to be considerably modified, in California, at least, where 
in certain bays and estuaries the shad is found in greater or less abundance during 
every month in the year. The evidence at hand indicates a condition prevailing in 
the littoral and fluvial waters of the Pacific Coast that is very favorable to the growth 
of the shad. It is not unusual to take examples considerably larger than any ever 
seen in the eastern rivers. The average weight of the shad caught on the Atlantic 
Coast is under 4 pounds, and the capture of fish weighing 7, 8, or 9 pounds is 
extremely rare. In California, however, it is not uncommon to secure shad weighing 
8 or 10 pounds, and reports have been made that 15-pound individuals have occa- 
sionally been obtained in salmon nets. 
Of scarcely less consequence than the actual results of shad introduction on the 
west coast is the important bearing which the success of the experiment must have 
in determining the outcome of artificial propagation in regions in which it is not 
possible to distinguish with satisfactory accuracy the natural from the artificial con- 
ditions. If these far-reaching, and no doubt permanent, results attend the planting, 
on few occasions, of small numbers of fry in waters to which the fish are not indige- 
nous, is it not permissible to assume that much more striking consequences must 
follow the planting of enormous quantities of fry, year after year, in native waters? 
There is no reasonable doubt that the perpetuation of the extensive shad fisheries In 
most of the rivers of the Atlantic Coast has been accomplished entirely by artificial 
propagation. On no other supposition can the maintenance and increase of the 
aupply be accounted for. 
The introduction of the striped bass was accomplished in 1879, when about 150 
fish, a few inches long, taken in Shrewsbury River, New Jersey, were successfully 
carried across the continent and deposited at the mouth of the Sacramento River by 
an agent of the United States Fish Commission, cooperating with the California 
commission. Six or seven months later an example 8 inches in length was reported 
from Monterey Bay, 100 miles south of the locality where planted, and in eleven 
months another specimen 124 inches long, and weighing 1 pound, was caught in San 
Francisco Harbor. This very rapid growth indicated the special adaptability of 
the waters of the region to this fish. In 1882 another plant, consisting of 300 fish, 
was made in the same region by the California authorities. As a result of these 
two small deposits, the species soon became distributed along the entire coast of 
California; its occurrence, however, in the other States of the region has not yet 
been determined. 7 
The history of the striped bass is similar to that of the shad. It has attained 
considerable commercial importance, has increased steadily and rapidly, and is 
generally regarded as one of the best food-fishes of the coast. It has not yet attained 
anything like the abundance of the shad, nor was this to have been expected from the 
