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Appendices to Sixteenth Annual Report 



Artificial In the BulletiQ of the United States Fish Commission for 1896 



^mon"^°^ (Vol. XVI.), Mr. Livingstone Stone, who has been connected with the 

 tish-hatching operations on the Pacific Coast since their earliest com- 

 mencement, furnishes an interesting and instructive report on the 

 salmon-breeding work of the United States Fish Commission on that 

 coast. He gives a brief history of the hatching operations at Baird 

 Station, California, from 1872 to the present time, and describes the 

 growth of the hatchery, the means adopted for capturing and retaining 

 the breeding salmon, the packing and shipping of the eggs, and the 

 vicissitudes of each season's spawning operations. 



From 1872 to 1883 inclusive, eggs from the Baird Station were for the 

 most part transported across the continent of America and the fry 

 deposited in the rivers flowing into the Atlantic. With regard to the 

 result of this experiment Mr. Stone writes as follows, viz. : — 



"When the work of the United States Fish Commission in salmon breeding 

 " was begun on the Pacific Coast, it was supposed that that coast had enough 

 "salmon to spare, and it was the intention of the Commission to increase the 

 ' ' salmon on the Atlantic Coast by restocking its depleted salmon rivers. The 

 "highest hopes were entertained of doing that after it had become an accom- 

 "plished fact that millions of salmon eggs had been procured on this coast, and 

 "that they had been safely transported across the continent to the Atlantic 

 ' ' rivers. I doubt if there was one person who heard about it in America, whether 

 ' ' interested in fish culture or not, who did not believe that salmon were going to 

 ' ' become abundant again in the Atlantic rivers on account of the introduction of 

 "Pacific Coast fish; and not only this, but many persons believed that several 

 " Southern rivers that had never had any salmon in them before, would become 

 "prolific salmon streams, when they were well stocked with this new Calif ornian 

 " salmon that abounded in warm latitudes on the Pacific Coast. That this did not 

 " prove to be the result was a stupendous surprise and disappointment. The eggs 

 "hatched out beautifully. The young fry, when deposited in the fresh-water 

 " streams, seemed to thrive well. They grew rapidly, and when the proper time 

 ' ' came were observed to go down in vast numbers to the sea. What afterwards 

 ' ' became of them will remain forever an unfathomable mystery. Except in rare 

 "isolated instances, these millions of salmon were never seen again. What 

 "became of them? Where did they go? Are any of them still alive in the 

 "boundless ocean? Or are they all dead? And if they are dead, what killed 

 " them? Much as this information has been desired, there lives no one who can 

 " answer these questions. Some have thought that they wandered off to the far 

 " North, and so became lost to the civilised world. Others that they strayed out 

 " into the ocean and were devoured by marine animals and larger fish. Professor 

 " Baird once jokingly remarked to the writer that he thought they had found an 

 "underground passage beneath the continent, and had returned by it to the 

 " Pacitic. One thing is certain, and that is that these millions of salmon have 

 " disappeared as completely from the Atlantic Ocean and its tributaries as if they 

 " had been devoured years ago by the monsters of the deep." 



The result of this experiment would seem to be of more than ordinary 

 interest when it is taken into consideration (1) that in ten years, viz.: — 

 from 1872 to 1881 inclusive, 31,193,000 eggs were transported from Baird 

 Station on the M'Cloud River, and 22,504,035 young fry were actually 

 introduced into the rivers on the Atlantic seaboard {op. cit., 228), and 

 (2) that Salmo quinnat did not previously exist in the Atlantic rivers, and 

 that had, therefore, any appreciable number returned as adult salmon 

 they could hardly have escaped notice. 



With regard to the value of artificial hatching as a means of main- 

 taining the productiveness of existing fisheries, Mr. Livingstone Stone 

 states : — 



' ' That although Nature has evidently designed that the quinnat salmon shall 

 " not take up its abode on the American shores of the Atlantic, the breeding of 

 " this fish seems to serve a legitimate and useful purpose in keeping up the supply 

 " of its species in its native waters of the Pacific Slope ; especially in view of the 

 " enormous drafts made upon these fish by the canneries and by the yearly 

 " increasing consumption of fresh and salted salmon." 



