FISH WAYS. 



The most important means for the preservation of the tish now in our 

 rivers, is in the construction of fish hidders over all dams otherwise 

 impassable. Even traps, seines, and spears will not utterly destroy the 

 tish if some few are permitted to reach their natural spawning beds. It is 

 the instinct of all anadromoiis fish, after leaving the ocean, to seek the 

 pai-ticular stream or rivulet in which they were hatched to deposit their 

 eii"gs. To reach the particular spot and the parent bed of gravel they 

 will make every effort. Yf here impassable dams have been placed across 

 streams, the tish will come year after year and leap by the hour to scale 

 the falls until uttcrl}' exhausted. If no means are provided by which 

 the fish can pass the dam, in three or four 3'ears the stream above the 

 dam will be without fish. A fish ladder is ordinaril}^ so simple and inex- 

 pensive an afl'air that it would seem that men owning dams Avould, if 

 informed, construct them without the requirements of a compulsory 

 statute. A good fish ladder for use on our mountain streams is made in 

 the form of a long box of plank, open at both ends, four feet wide and 

 three feet high. One end of the box is fastened at the top of the dam, 

 the other end is extended to and fastened in the center of the pool below 

 the dam. In the inside of the box and fastened on its bottom are pieces 

 of plank about four feet apart, placed transversely, and called "ritiles." 

 Each riffle is about a foot high. These riffles do not extend from side to 

 side of the box, but only about two thirds across. To illustrate: if the 

 first riffle is fastened on the right side of the box at a right angle to its 

 side, it will extend thirty inches across the box; the next, four feet above, 

 will be fastened on the left side of the box and extend thirty inches 

 across it; and so on, alternately, until the top is reached. The water 

 passing into the top of this box, is caught* by these riffles and diverted 

 right and left by thenl until it reaches the stream below. The fish com- 

 ing up the stream to the dam seek and explore every crevice and open- 

 ing where Avater is passing. If the lower end of the fish way is placed 

 near the centre of the pool below the dam, they readily lind it, and 

 immediately enter it. Even if the ladder is placed at so great an angle 

 as forty-five degrees, the fish have no difficulty in passing through it; 

 they will jump through almost any current a distance of four feet, and 

 each riffle gives them a resting place behind Avhich they recover for the 

 next jump. At one dam on a tributary of the Truckee a mill owner 

 consented to put in a fish way, at the earnest solicitation of one of the 

 Commissioners, and to prevent the expenses of a suit. He said the law 

 was an infringement of his rights, and when the Legislature passed an 

 Act to compel him to spend money in such foolish business they should 

 have appointed a schoolmaster to teach the trout how to use the con- 

 trivance; he did not believe a fish could be coaxed to go near it. The 

 next evening after the fish way was placed in position the fish were j)ass- 

 ing it eveiy few minutes; the mill owner became a convert to the prac- 

 tical use of fish ways. He soon tore away the cheap and temporary 

 affair built to comply with the law under compulsion, and has erected in 

 its place a substantial ladder that will last for years. A fish ladder is 

 but an artificial imitation of the means by which river fish in their 

 annual migrations pass up rapids. After reaching the foot of a rapid 

 the fish rest; the}^ will then suddenly dart up the stream and seek shelter 

 in the slack water behind some rock; here, after more rest, as if to recover 

 strength for the next great exertion, they will dart again and get behind 

 another rock; and so on, until the rapid is passed. From the descrip- 



