oi84 



FOREST AND STREAM 



40&\ @nltwte. 



Thin Journal 18 the Official Organ of the Fish Cultur. 

 ists' Association. 



UNITED STATES FISH HATCHING IN 

 CALIFORNIA. 



SOME weeks ago we acknowledged the receipt from 

 Livingston Stone, Esq., Deputy U. 8. Fish Commis- 

 sioner, of some photographs of the Government Hatching 

 Establishment on the McLeod River, in Shasta county. 

 This establishment comprises two comfortable houses fifty 

 feet long, with kitchen, offices, bunks, &c, which occupy 

 a rocky shelf hanging over the very bank of the river, in 

 the middle of a double curve of the stream, where it forms 

 » letter S. All these have been erected since the 3d of 

 July, during the summer just past, together with corrals 

 or pounds, troughs, tanks, filters, and other necessary ap- 

 pliances for carrying on the operations of the establish- 

 ment, which, without them, were greatly limited during 

 the first two years at this station. The force at present 

 employed in this service comprises: Livingston Stone, 

 Chief; John G. Woodbury, Foreman; Marshall L. Perrin, 

 Secretary; Waldo Hubbard, Richard Hubbard. E. C. 

 Forbes, Oliver Anderson, John P. Williams, Assistants to 

 the Chief; E. Conklin, Photographer; Myron Green, Chief 

 Fisherman — ten persons in all, together with a Chinese 

 cook, and numerous Pitt River Indians, who assist in haul- 

 ing seines, corralling fish, pulling boats, and other inciden- 

 tal labor. 



The McLeod River [rises in Mount Shasta, and flows 

 through deep and rocky canyons for seventy-five miles or 

 more, emptying into the Pitt River, a tributary of the Sac- 

 ramento, 185 miles above Sacramento, and some twenty 

 miles from the Sacramento River on the east. It is never 

 wider than 160 yards, and often narrows, as it rushes and 

 foams through rocky passes, to thirty yards, and even less. 

 Its waters are cold as ice, formed from melting Bnows, and 

 fed by the coolest springs of the deepest and longest gorges 

 of the mountain ranges which it penetrates; they are clear* 

 as crystal, and a person standing on the banks can distin- 

 guish every pebble upon the bottom iu the mid channel for 

 an eighth of a mile above, and see every fish that sports in 

 their depths. Its waters so temper the atmosphere that the 

 heat of a scorching summer noonday is scarcely felt as you 

 rest upon the verdure covered banks. Wherever known, 

 its wild and romantic scenery and its surpassing loveliness 

 have won for it the verdict of purest and most beautiful of 

 California's rivers. This river is still in possession of the 

 Indians, and almost free from white men, although two 

 settlers have obtained a foothold far up the river, since the 

 advent of the Fish Commission. Up to that time, two 

 years and a half ago, the Indians persistently fought off or 

 murdered all intending settlers or miners, regarding the 

 river as exclusively their own. They had been the last of 

 the California tribes to yield to the white man's sway, and 

 the hardest to subjugate. "At one time," says Mr. Stone, 

 "a party of miners came down across the Sacramento hills 

 to their river to look for gold, but they were waited on in 

 the morning by three Chiefs and three hundred warriors, 

 and summarily escorted out of the country. This sort of 

 thing was repeated several times. Still later a party of 

 two Americans and eleven Chinamen came up from the 

 Sacramento River to dig for gold, and camped a short dis- 

 tance above the present location of our camp, but before 

 morning the McCloud Indians murdered every one of them, 

 not leaving one to^tell the story. 



"A year ago a Mr. Crooks came to the river and settled a 

 mile or two above us, but the Indians murdered him as late 

 as last September, while I was there. 



"When we came to the river to erect our house and 

 hatching works, a large number of IndianB assembled on 

 the opposite bank and spent the whole afternoon endeavor- 

 ing by threats and furious gesticulations to drive us away, 

 and afterwards several of them waited on me and told me 

 in their dialect of which I had learned a little, that this 

 was thetr river and their land, and these were their salmon, 

 and that I was stealing the land and salmon; that they had 

 never stolen anything from the white man nor taken his 

 land, and that I ought to go away. Some of them went 

 so ftir as to give out threats about my being killed. When 

 I thought of the fate of all my predecessors on the 

 McCloud, I did sometimes feel slight misgivings, but I 

 adopted a firm and conciliatory policy with them which 

 worked so satisfactorily that I am now perfectly satisfied 

 that none of us are in any danger there. I ought also to 

 add that they stand in too much fear of the white man to 

 do any open injury." 



(jgMr. Stone has now mastered their language, knows every 

 man by name, never passes one without pleasant greeting, 

 trusts them with many valuables and has not yet been de- 

 ceived. Once having a large sum of money about him 

 and having reason to anticipate an attack lrom white men, 

 he called an Indian and gave him the treasure, while he 

 laid down and slept. The next day the dusky custodian 

 returned every cent. One of the party sold an Indian a 

 vest; the redskin followed him six miles on foot to restore 

 a gold chain carelessly left in the pocket. 



As has been intimated, an immense amount of work has 

 been done the past summer. From a very comprehensive 

 sketch printed in the Sacramento Record we have been en- 

 abled to cull the following facts of|interest: — 

 "With incredible labor they built two stone piers in th e 



stream, and from there to either shore; and from pier to 

 pier, where the river is about, two hundred feet wide, they 

 sunk a fence to the bottom, and extending a foot or more 

 above the water. This fence resembles a rack, and is 

 made of willow poles lashed to cross pieces. The poles 

 are so close together as to prevent the salmon passing 

 through them, and hence below it they gather in thousands, 

 leaping against the barrier in vain attempts to pass. The 

 fence is made in sections, and on the 1st of November, 

 when the camp breaks up, up comes the fence too, to be 

 packed away and saved for next year. At the northern end 

 of the fence is an acre of river bottom, graveled and level. 

 Here a huge undershot wheel has been set in the bank, 

 moving regularly and slowly with the current. On the 

 shore side the periphery of the wheel is mounted with 

 buckets, which dip into the clear waters, come up full, 

 and empty 6,000 gallons per hour into a flume. This flume 

 leads to the hatching trough. On the opposite shore, at 

 the end of the fence, two corrals, so-called, have been 

 built, made by fencing off some of the river edge where 

 the current is lighter. The only entrance to these corrals 

 is through a long funnel made of poles, aud narrowing, so 

 the salmon may barely get through at the inner end, and 

 there the poles are sharp aud pointed. The fish finding the 

 fence impassable, work along its front until reaching this 

 funnel. Once in this pool they are driven through a gate 

 to the second corral, and here securely kept. 



But all fish are not taken in corrals. Mr. Stone cannot 

 trust for his supply of eggs to these alone. The greater por- 

 tion are captured below the fonce in seines at night, and 

 then the services of the Indians are most useful in pulling 

 at the ropes. A full ton are taken at a haul, and the Pro- 

 fessor and his men and Indians are iu the midst of the 

 struggling salmon, knee deep in the icy stream. The red 

 skins shout and laugh and dance. The cry "Mahalla !" 

 "Mahalla !" is incessant, and now and then, as a huge fel- 

 low is disentangled from the net, the cry is "buck !" 

 "buck!" The fish with the gracefully shaped jaws and 

 broad bodies are the females, "mahallas," and are carried 

 rapidly to a floating crib near by and cast in, where they 

 flounder in shallow water in vain endeavor to escape. The 

 crooked jawed, narrow bodied and heavy fish are the 

 "bucks," or males, and about one in five of these are taken 

 to the crib also, while the remaining four fall to the In- 

 dians. 



The hardest work, however, is done by day. Following 

 down the flume from the water wheel and you enter a tent 

 nearly 100 feet long and 50 wide. The water pours into a 

 large wooden reservoir, and now we come to the hatching 

 process. On one side are the men busy making trays, and 

 hard work it is. These trays are light frames one by two 

 feet, stretched across each of which is a sheet of wire cloth 

 or screen cloth, treated with asphalt, to prevent fungus or 

 slime gathering upon the wood, which would destroy the 

 eggs. 9f these trays, over 500 have already beeu made, 

 and 500 more areyet to be constructed. Leading from 

 the reservoir mentioned and running the whole length 

 of the tent by gentle declination, made by drop- 

 ping sections slightly, are eight long troughs of heavy 

 boards just wide enough to admit the trays length- 

 wise. These troughs made by the party are also black with 

 asphalt. Each trough is divided by partitions into lengths 

 to suit the length of the trays. In each compartment so 

 made, four trays will rest, one on top the other. Thus we 

 have troughs enough to hold 1,120 trays at a time. Each 

 tray will hold 6,000 salmon eggs. This gives a total, when 

 all are filled, of 6,720,000. About five per cent are lost, 

 leaving 6,384,000 reliable eggs, every one of which will pro- 

 duce a fish. These eggs are obtained by stripping the 

 female salmon, and impregnating them with the milt of 

 the males. The eggs procured number about 500 to every 

 pound weight of the yielding salmon. They are always 

 rinsed iu the trough compartment with carefully filtered 

 water from the reservoir. After lying two days upon the 

 trays, over and through which the water passes continually, 

 the egg becomes opaque, aud a film extends over the yolk. 

 This opaque spot is the germ of fish life. Now it. is the 

 trays must be watched. Daily, nightly they must be lifted 

 out and examined. Whenever an egg turns white it is dy- 

 ing or dead, aud is picked out. If left in the tray it would 

 throw out a vegetable growth of little arms and destroy 

 every egg within reach. For seventeen days the eggs re- 

 main in the troughs, and then two bright, black little spots 

 are seen; these are the infant eyes of the future salmon. 

 Now comes the packing. The boxes in which they are 

 packed are all two feet square and a foot deep. The eggs 

 are packed with first a layer of moss at the bottom of the 

 box, and then a layer of eggs, and then another layer of 

 eggs, and so on to the top. Midway, in the interior of each 

 box, there is a thin wooden partition to break the force of 

 the superincumbent mass of moss and eggs. We pack 

 about 75,000 in a box. When the box is filled the cover is 

 screwed down and packed with another one of the same 

 size in a crate three inches and a half larger on all sides 

 than the combined bulk of the two boxes inclosed, this in- 

 tervening space being filled with hay to protect the eggs 

 from sudden changes of temperature. On the top of the 

 crates is a rack for ice. The only suitable moss that can be 

 obtained is found at the headwaters of the Sacramento, 

 seventy miles away ! When the embryo tire packed they 

 have to make a journey of 3,000 miles to the eastern watere 

 for which they are intended. The first shipment is now 

 ready, and the rest will follow rapidly until the spawning 

 season ends. Really, that; is September 21st, but as Cali- 

 fornia is peculiar iu many things, so in tins, salmon run up 



the stream every month in the year here, and spawning 

 goes on all the time. About the first of November Mr. 

 Stone will break camp, pack up his works and secure them. 

 He will then go down the coast, perhaps as far as San 

 Diego, and, under orders from Washington, inquire into 

 the entire salmon and trout family of the coast, and pre- 

 sent the result of his labors in a full report. 



No eggs are fully hatched, either at the California estab- 

 lishment, or at the one at the Penobscot River under 

 charge of O. G. Atkins, these being the distributing stations 

 from which they are sent to the various minor stations in 

 the States, at which they are fully hatched. The hatching 

 time depends on the temperature of the water, and may be 

 from one month to six months. In California about one 

 month suffices to produce the perfect fish, which at the age 

 of two months is able to look out for itself in our rivers and 

 bays. The station on the Penobscot is maintained to sup- 

 ply salmon for the cold waters of the northern streams, 

 and that upon the McLeod River to supply fish for the 

 warmer waters of the south of the Union. There is also a 

 noted difference between the salmon at the two stations. 

 That of California is known as the idlmo (jxdnnat; that of 

 the Penobscot as the sahno salar. The former is marked 

 only by dark and gray spots with silver, while the Maine 

 salmon presents a variety of beautiful colors. The Cali- 

 fornia salmon has a hooked or eagle beak upper jaw, with 

 no knob or projection upon the lower jaw. Tho salmon at 

 the east presents the contrary features. As to their flesh 

 there, is but little difference, though the eastern salmon is 

 now in most favor. 



The McLeod River was selected because it is the chief 

 salmon-breeding stream in California; its waters are per- 

 fectly pure, and the means of speedy transportation 

 ample; it is free from white men, and has no mining, mills, 

 etc., to drive the salmon away. Within a few years the 

 American and Feather rivers have been entirely depleted 

 of these fish, and now California's supply of salmon de- 

 pends wholly on this stream. The barriers, corrals, &c. 

 of the Commission will not break up the run of salmon, 

 because myriads of fish go up the river both before and 

 after he takes spawn, and the six million eggs he takes will 

 not be missed. Salmon enter the mouth of the McLeod iu 

 March in large schools, and in May are still more plentiful, 

 but not very large. In August the run up stream begins, 

 and then comes the spawning, the flsh seeking the far upper 

 waters to deposit the ova. The Sacramento salmon is an 

 active and powerful fighter. It may be caught by hook 

 and line in salt or brackish waters and also in fresh waters 

 of the upper tributaries. "Salmon Roe" is the best bait 

 for angling for the fish, but they will often take the artifi- 

 cial fly. A short time after spawning in the McLeod River, 

 the parent salmon become black, smooth, the scales are 

 absorbed into the body, and they become diseased and die. 

 Their bodies float to the shores in thousands, and then it is 

 the bears come down from the mountains to eat the dead 

 fish, and all the Indians go hunting bear. Preparations are 

 already on foot on the McLeod for the bear hunts of Sept- 

 ember. 



Besides salmon hatching, Mr. Stone and his party have 

 other work still to do. They every day prepare specimens 

 for the Smithsonian Institute Museum at Washington, put- 

 ting up in alcohol varieties of salmon and all possible at- 

 tainable varieties of brook, lake, river and mountain 

 trout. Some are skinned, others preserved entire. Over 

 four hundred specimens have already been obtained, 

 and some one hundred gallons of alcohol used in their pres- 

 ervation. When finished it will be the only complete 

 museum collection of California flsh. 



— ■»«*- 



Eastern Trout in California.— Some two years ago 

 the California Fish Commissioners procured from the East 

 varieties of river and brook trout, and placed them in the 

 north fork of the American River, where, before, there 

 were no fish. AVe now learn from Mr. B. B. Redding— one 

 of the Commissioneas who recently visited the river where 

 they were deposited, in order to ascertain how the fish had 

 prospered, and whether they had remained iu those waters 

 or had gone below the falls— that he found the trout very 

 plenty, biting freely at the hook and much grown. He 

 took several and identified them as the eastern fish, He 

 returned all he caught to the river. The spawning season 

 for this fish is at hand, and he believes the head waters of 

 the river will be thoroughly stocked with these trout. 

 ■»■» 



Scotisdrelism.— Mr. Hess, of the firm of Perkins & Hess, 

 of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has called at our Chicago of- 

 fice to express their misgivings that Fish Culture will not 

 pay as an industry, inasmuch as an appropriation of some 

 200 salmon were nearly destroyed in his hatching house 

 last week by some scoundrels who poisoned them. 

 — ■» 



—Tho semi-annual meeting of the Illinois State Fish Cul- 

 turists' Association will be held at Peoria during the State 

 Fair, to-day. Different native breeds of food fish will be 

 exhibited, and also trout from the fish farms at Elgin. Sev- 

 eral very fine aquaria will be shown. 



■+++' 



—The State Fish House at Anamosa, Iowa, will be com- 

 pletes by the end of this month. The spring which will 

 supply the hatching troughs is almost inexhaustible. Mr. 

 B. F. Shaw, who is in charge, has been notified by Profes- 

 sor Baird to be in readiness to receive 250,000 California 

 salmon early next month. Mr. Shaw will certainly raise 

 white fish at Anamosa. We wish the Iowa Fish Commis- 

 sioners full success, and believe that their labors will In 

 due time produce the best of results. 



