IX -REPORT OF OPERATIONS AT THE TROUTBREEDLNG STA- 

 TION ON THE M'CLOlll) RIVER, CALIFORNIA, DURING THE 

 SEASON OF 1884. 



By Livingston Stone 



The date of the beginning of the spawning season at the front ponds 

 seems to recede a little every year. This season, the first ripe fish were 

 fonnd on the 28th of December, when 12,300 eggs were taken from 16 

 trout. The spawning continued till the 28tli of May, when 8,000 eggs 

 were taken from 10 trout. Mr. Loren W. Green, wlio has charge of this 

 station, reports that there were still many unripe females at that time 

 which had not spawned, and which he had to turn back to the ponds 

 because no more ripe males could be obtained, the spawning season for 

 the males being entirely over. Mr. Green also reports that there was 

 something very unusual in the way in whicli the spawningfemales turned 

 out this season ; their eggs not only seemed to be very slow in maturing* 

 in the parent, but they were also few in number, small and poorly de- 

 veloped when ripened. The average number of eggs to the fish was at 

 least 200 less than in former years. The observations of Mr. Green 

 were confirmed by the experience of Mr. J. B. Campbell, who has been 

 engaged in the culture of trout, more or less, for the last eight years. 

 Mr. Campbell writes, under date of May 17, 1884, that there has never 

 been such a season on the river since be took up trout culture there eight 

 years ago. The trout, he says, did not yield the usual number of eggs, 

 and they acted strangely in running up the small streams many days 

 before they were ready to spawn. Mr. Green attributes uuich of this 

 unusual conduct on the part of the trout to scarcity of food in the river 

 during the fall. The thousands of salmon which annually die in the 

 river at their spawning season, and then sink to the bottom, furnish, 

 strangely enough, much of the food of the trout at that season, besides 

 vastly increasing the amount of low forms of aquatic animal life in the 

 river, which also furnish food for the trout later on. This year, very 

 few salmon came up the river, owing to the blasting operations of the 

 railroad construction corps, near the mouth of Pitt Eiver, and the natural 

 food supply of the McCloud Eiver trout was consequently very much 

 diminished. I think Mr. Green is correct in connecting the peculiar 

 conduct of the parent trout with this diminution of the food supply, 

 [IJ 171 



