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OYSTER RESOURCES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 363 
Suggestions.—In view of the fact that there is considerable propaga- 
tion among the oysters of San Francisco Bay and that no attempt has 
— been made to collect spat, it would be desirable to experiment in the 
vicinity of the most southerly beds of Ahe bay with a variety of spat-__— 
.. collecting surfaces. There are many suitable channels, creeks, and 
tracts of deep water close to the beds. Bundles of brush could be 
anchored outside the lines of stakes about the beds or in the creeks, 
and floating collectors could be moored anywhere; these could be made —__ 
seow-shaped, the sides and ends of coarse timbers of any sort, and thes, 
bottom of wide-meshed wire netting; such a craft, loaded with all the 
shells it could conveniently float, could be towed anywhere and might 
be large or small. In view of the existence of stingrays, this pattern 
of collector or the brush collectors would be safest, to say nothing of 
the ease with which they could be inspected for presence of spat. .————~ 
If there were fixing surface of any description in the creeks or sloughs 
that extend from the southern part of the bay far back toward San 
Jose, Redwood, Belmont, Newark, and through the marsh lands gen- 
erally, it is probable that oysters would attach, When the cold tide flows 
in across the extensive sun-heated flats in the springtime, it warms 
rapidly and fills the creeks with water of a much higher temperature 
than is found elsewhere in the region of the bay. The warm water 
flowing across the oysters brings them into spawn very suddenly when 
the weather conditions are favorable. My attention was called to this 
fact by the oystermen.  ————————= 
The creeks are, without exception, very muddy and absolutely with- 
out any firm surfaces upon which drifting oyster spat might settle. 
These creeks are similar in character. Most of them retain a consider- 
able depth of water at low tide. They are named on the charts of San 
Francisco Bay as follows: Union City Creek, Cayote Creek, Beard 
Creek, Mud Creek, Alviso Slough, Redwood City Creek, Steinberger 
Creek, Angela Creek. Quantities of brush from the drier lands, just 
back of the marshes through which they flow, could. readily be depos- 
ited in them as spat-collectors. From the fact that oysters have been 
taken from the timbers of two or three old trestles that cross them, we 
might reasonably expect favorable results from a careful experiment 
_with-brush collectors. oe IMR RE oT 
Should it finally be found advantageous, these creeks could readily be 
sown with quantities of shells of the native oyster from the shell heaps 
about the shores of the bay. That the native species has never pene- 
trated into them is no argument against the propagation of the eastern 
species there. Occasional specimens have already been found growing 
there, and the creeks may prove as favorable to them as similar cheeks oa 
are on the Atlantie coast. ~ KG Ce ee ee 
The proper time for placing collectors in San Francisco Bay is yet to 
be determined. 
