REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 53 



THE FOOD FISHES OF THE CALIFORNIA FRESH WATERS. 



By Dr. Carl H. Eigenmann. 



The knowledge of the fresh-water fishes of California is at present 

 more limited than that of any other State. It is, therefore, no easy 

 task to present an account of the food fishes which shall at the same 

 time be popular, or free from the technicalities of the ichthyologist, and 

 scientifically exact. My personal observations have been confined 

 to the southern and central counties of California, my explorations 

 having been rather prematurely arrested. I hope, however, either this 

 or the coming year to thoroughly explore every stream and lake in the 

 State, and present you with a fuller report. 



There is comparatively a very limited variety of fishes in California. 

 A stream which, in the Mississippi Valley, would harbor seventy-five 

 or a hundred different species of fish, would, in California, scarcely 

 contain twenty. This is due to two causes. 



CAUSES OF FISH SCARCITY. 



I. Many of our streams become entirely dry during the summer, and 

 no species that does not migrate to the sea or the lower or higher water- 

 courses, can exist in them. 



II. It is a law in the distribution of fresh-water fishes that the greater 

 the water system the larger the number of species of fishes found in any 

 of the tributaries. The tributaries of the Sacramento thus have much 

 fewer species than the tributaries of the Mississippi, and the tributaries 

 of the Mississippi much fewer than the tributaries of the Amazon. To be 

 more precise, one naturalist has caught as many species of fishes in one 

 of the tributaries of the Mississippi in a day as there are known from 

 the entire region west of the Sierra Nevada. 



NAMES OF FISHES. 



I present a list of the fresh-water fishes now known from California, 

 giving both the scientific and popular name: 



Ammoccetes tridentatus Gairdner. Lamprey. 

 Ammoccetes cibarius Girard. Lead-colored Lamprey. 

 Acipenser transmontanus Richardson. White Sturgeon. 

 Actpenser medirostris Ayers. Green Sturgeon. 

 Catostomus arxap^is Jordan. Kern River Sucker. 

 Catostomus rex R. Eigenmann. Klamath Sucker. 

 Catostomus occidentalis Ayers. Sacramento Sucker. 

 Catostomus tahoensis Gill and Jordan. Tahoe Sucker. 

 Chasmistes brevirostris Cope. 

 Chasmistes luxatus Cope. 

 Orthodon microlepidotus Ayers. 

 Lavinia exilicauda Baird and Girard. 

 Pogonichthys macrolepidotus Ayers. 

 Mylocheilus caurinus Richardson. 

 Mylopharodon conocephalus Baird and Girard. 

 Piychocheilus oregonensis Richardson. Sacramento Pike. 



