40 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



be prohibited, which would reduce the number of boats engaged in this 

 work about three fourths. The State could then, without much injury 

 to our general fishery interests, grant a continuous open season. The 

 shipping of dried shrimps and dried young fish to China is profitable? 

 for which reason the proposed amendments are urged by those interested. 



Since the refusal of our Supreme Court and of the United States 

 District Court to issue writs of habeas corpus in cases of arrest of shrimp 

 fishermen by our deputies, only one legal effort has been made to 

 nullify the law. An appeal to our Supreme Court was made on the 

 ground that a constitutional provision had been violated when the 

 Legislature included fish and game under one title. This effort was 

 distinguished chiefly by the force and brevity of the opinion of a 

 unanimous court, which held that "the preservation of fish and game 

 is a single subject of legislation, and may properly be embraced in the 

 same act." 



We firmlv believe that this law should not be disturbed, for the follow- 

 ing reasons, which were given in our preceding report: "Because not a 

 single citizen of our State has suffered by its operations. Not only has 

 there been an ample supply of fresh shrimps for our markets, but mill- 

 ions of young fish have escaped destruction, and are thereby enabled 

 to attain a marketable size, which contributes to the benefit of all our 

 people and tends to destroy a Chinese monopoly. As every interest of 

 the commonwealth relating to fisheries has been subserved, and only 

 the export trade of the dried shrimp and small fish to China has been 

 decreased by this law, we would most earnestly recommend that it be 

 continued on our statute books indefinitely." 



CARP. 



With so many superior food fishes at hand, it is not strange that our 

 people regard the carp with disfavor. Notwithstanding they are found 

 in all our markets, they are sold principally to the Chinese. The Fish 

 Commission has often been criticised for introducing this fish into the 

 waters of this State. In our opinion, carp have been a benefit rather 

 than a detriment; not as a food supply for the people, but because of 

 the food they furnish for better fishes. The first carp, about seven 

 hundred in number, were brought into this State in 1875, not by the 

 California Fish Commission, but by United States Fish Commissioner 

 Spencer F. Baird, who expended a portion of the appropriation made 

 by the Government in the importation of European carp. They were 

 brought from the regions of the upper Rhine, the Danube, and the Po 

 rivers in Europe. In 1877 we, in exchange for California trout eggs, 

 received from the Department of Agriculture of Japan about eighty 

 specimens of Japanese carp, which were placed in the aquarium 



