36 Report of the American 



With a view of securing a sufficient suppl.y of the eggs of the Cali- 

 fornia sahnon, Mr. Livingston Stone, as in the previous year, was sent 

 out to the United States salmon-breeding camp on the McCloud River, 

 near Mt. Shasta, where he obtained about a million and a half of eggs 

 which were shipped to the East (a portion to Utah) , and about half of 

 them successfully hatched out, at various State and private establish- 

 ments, and placed in different streams in the Northern, Middle, and 

 Western States. The more important w^aters supplied are several 

 streams in Maine and Massachusetts, the Connecticut, Hudson, Dela- 

 ware, and Potomac rivers, Lake Champlain, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, 

 and Lake Michigan, and the Ohio River. 



During the year, also, the establishment at Bucksport, Maine, under 

 Mr. Atkins, continued its operations, on an enlarged scale and with ver}' 

 satisfactory success. While the salmon are seined when wanted on the 

 McCloud, at this establishment they are purchased living from the fish- 

 ermen, who capture them in weirs in the months of June and July, and 

 place them in a large pond, to await the period of reproduction. Here 

 the}- remain until October or November, when the instinct of spawning 

 seizes them, and they run down into the outlet of the pond, where the 

 hatching works are situated. The spawn is removed by gentle pressure 

 into a vessel, and fertilized, and the parent fish returned alive to the 

 w^ater, and allowed ultimately to run down to the sea. Previously, 

 however, they are marked by a label, so as to determine whether an}' 

 come back again ; and in this event to ascertain the growth and increase 

 of weight in the interval, their original length and weight being 

 recorded. 



These eggs are then brought forward to a proper degree of develop- 

 ment, and finally distributed to State Commissioners, by whom the 

 operation is completed, and the young placed in the public waters of the 

 States. It is expected that, as the result of the operations of these two 

 establishments during 1873, not far from three million young salmon 

 will be planted in the eastern, middle, and northern waters of the United 

 States, including those placed in the tributaries of the Great Salt 

 Lake. 



Another enterprise of a similar character has been the erection of an 

 establishment for the hatching of the eggs of land-locked salmon on 

 Sebec Lake, in Maine, in which the Commissioners of Massachusetts 

 and Connecticut have united with the United States Commissioner. 

 It is hoped that, when this is fairly in operation, a large supply of this 

 most valuable food fish will be secured. 



Operations looking toward the multiplication of shad in American 

 waters, both on the part of the United States and of some of the States 



