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found on the rockj- and gravel bottoms of lakes. They grow to 

 weigh an average of one and a half pounds, and constitute the most 

 important food fish of the people living near the great lakes. Pro- 

 fessor Baird, in his report to Congress, says: " Few fishes of North 

 America will better repay eff"orts for their multiplication." We are 

 promised a further sujjply of eggs during the present winter, and 

 shall continue receiving eggs, and hatching and distributing these 

 fish to all the mountain lakes that are accessible during the winter 

 months. 



CATFISH (PIMELODUS CATTUS). 



The seventy-four Schuykill catfish imported in eighteen hun- 

 dred and seventy-four, and placed in lakes near Sacramento, have 

 increased to a vast extent. They already furnish an important 

 addition to the fish food supply of the City of Sacramento and 

 vicinity. From the increase we have distributed eight thousand four 

 hundred to appropriate waters, in the Counties of Napa, Monterey, 

 Los Angeles, Fresno, Tulare, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Alameda, 

 San Diego, Yolo, Santa Barbara, and Siskiyou. These, should they 

 thrive and increase as they have in Sacramento, will furnish an 

 abundance of valuable food in the warm waters of the lakes and 

 sloughs of the interior, and replace the bony and worthless chubs 

 and suckers that now inhabit these places. It may be proper to call 

 attention to the fact that these fish have become so numerous in the 

 lakes near Sacramento that they can now be obtained in any quan- 

 tity for stocking other appropriate waters in any part of the State. 



CARP. 



In exchange for California trout eggs sent to the Department of 

 Agriculture of Japan, we received, in May last, eighty-eight Japanese 

 carp. These were all young fish. We have had them placed in the 

 aquarium, at Woodward's Garden, where they are regularly fed and 

 cared for. When they shall have arrived at maturity they will be 

 placed in some appropriate lake or slough in the interior, and their 

 increase will be used to stock the warm waters of our valleys. Mr. 

 Sekizawa Akeiko, of the Agricultural Department of Japan, in 

 writing to us of these fish, sa3''s: "They grow very fast. In three 

 years they may be a foot and a half in length. We consider them 

 one of the best fish in fresh water." 



Professor Baird, United States Fish Commissioner, imported from 

 the headwaters of the Danube a number of the king carp. These 

 are now breeding in ponds at Druid Hill, near Baltimore. The 

 increase will be ready for distribution during the coming summer. 

 We are promised a large consignment. The king carp is considered 

 the most valuable and delicately flavored food fish of the carp fam- 

 ily. These and the Japanese carp, when they can be distributed to 

 all the sloughs, reservoirs, and lakes of the interior, will furnish a 

 valuable increase of fish food. They will be a very excellent substi- 

 tute for the worthless and unpalatable fish of the warm waters of the 

 great valleys in the interior of the State. 



