22 



other State, even to keep up a partial supply of salmon in the Sacra- 

 mento River. 



In addition to making the penalties more severe for violations of 

 the law, we would recommend that the law be so amended that it 

 shall be made a misdemeanor to fish for salmon with nets or traps 

 between sunset on Saturday and sunrise on Monday of each week. 

 This would give the salmon the freedom of the river one day in the 

 week, do no injury to the fishermen, and go far towards continuing 

 the supply in our rivers. 



SHAD (ALOSA PR^STABILIS). 



Shad, in their season, are becoming quite nurnerous in the Sacra- 

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

 resulted satisfactorily. The river is of proper temperature, and fur- 

 nishes 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 eighteen hundred and seventy-one have been 

 to the ocean, returned and spawned. No shad were placed in the 

 river during the years eighteen hundred and seventy-four and eight- 

 een hundred and seventy-five, 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 

 in the Sacramento. 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; prob- 

 ably not less than one thousand were thus taken during the winter 

 and spring of eighteen hundred and seventy-seven. They return 

 from the ocean at an earlier season of the year than in the 

 northern Atlantic States, in this respect corresponding to the periods 

 when they return to the rivers of South Carolina and Georgia. The 

 first reported this year were taken in Sonoma Creek, January sixth ; 

 the latest, two at Sacramento, June twentieth. These latter were full 

 grown fish, a male and female, on their return to the ocean after hav- 

 ing visited their spawning grounds. There were placed in the Sacra- 

 mento River, at Tehama, in eighteen hundred and seventy-one, 

 fifteen thousand young shad ; in eighteen hundred and seventy-three, 

 thirty-five thousand ; in eighteen hundred and seventy-six one 

 hundred and twenty thousand, and in eighteen hundred and 

 seventy-seven one hundred and fifteen thousand — in all, up to the 

 present time, two hundred and eighty-five thousand. All of these 

 were donations from the United States Government, but in some 

 cases we have paid all, and in others a part of the cost of transporta- 

 tion. We hoped during the past summer to import at least three 

 hundred thousand, and had all the arrangements made for this pur- 

 pose, but failed in consequence of the " railroad strikes," which unfor- 

 tunately took place at the time the young shad were ready for ship- 

 ment. We are frequently urged to make larger importations of shad, 

 and fill the rivers immediately. This is impossible with the appro- 

 priation at our disposal. The eggs of the shad, after being taken, 

 are hatched in from twenty -four to forty-eight hours, while floating 

 in the water, and the young almost immediately require food. From 

 the Hudson to California in seven days, is the greatest distance and 

 longest time that young shad have yet been transported. With the 

 utmost care and attention it is doubtful if they could be kept alive 



