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REPO 1-" THE « OMMISSIONERS OF FISHERIES OF THE 



STATE OF « A.LIFORNIA FOB THE FEARS 1872 AND It 



REPORT 



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The Commissioners of Fisheries for the State of California, 

 appointed under an acl of the Legislature entitled "An acl to provide 



the restoration and preservation <>f fish in waters of this state." 

 approved April second, eighteen hundred and seventy, respectfully 

 submit their Second Biennial Report. 



REPORT 



Y"our Commissioners, in pursuance of the plan contemplated in 



v last report, proceeded to open correspondence with the most noted 

 fish culturists in the east, and also with the United States Fish Com- 

 missioner at Washington City, upon the subject of obtaining an addi- 

 tions] supply of shad, and also a large variety of other food fishes from 

 the eastern lakes and sea coast. 



By the kindness of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, the 

 Hon. Spencer P. Baird, we were allowed to avail ourselves of the serv- 

 ices of Mr. Livingstone Stone, attached to the United States Commis- 

 sion, and engaged in transferring salmon eggs from California to the 

 waters flowing into the Atlantic. Mr. Stone's high reputation as a 

 successful breeder of fish, as well as a writer upon the subject of 

 Pisciculture, not only gave us confidence in the success of the enter- 

 prise, hut also led us to enlarge and amplify the scope and range of the 

 undertaking. 



In this view we made arrangements with Mr. Stone, for him to 

 proceed to the eastern states, and there collect a supply of shad, eels, 

 black bass, white fish. Tautogs, striped bass, blue fish, and lobsters. 



To carry into effect these plans, we chartered from the Central 

 Pacific R. R. Co. a special car, to be placed at our disposal at a given 

 point at the east, and there to await the necessary time for being fitted 

 up for the purpose, and to receive its freight of living fish. All the 

 requisite arrangements for the transit of this car over the different lines 

 of roads, as well as for its necessary stoppages and delays at different 

 points where fish were to be taken in, had been most completely made 

 by our colleague. Mr. B. B. Redding, through the agency of the dif- 

 ferent railroad managers ; and on the seventeenth day of March, 1873, 

 Mr. Stone left San Francisco, to carry out, if possible, the plan of your 

 Commissioners, to transport a car-load of living fish from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific Ocean. 



Referring to this expedition Mr. Stone says : 



In accordance with instructions received from the Fish Commis- 

 sioners of the State of California, I left San Francisco for the eastern 



