206 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
lu the summer of 1872, at a meeting of members of the Fish Oulturists’ Associa- 
tion and State fish commissioners, called, I think, by Prof. Spencer F. Baird, the 
United States Fish Commissioner, the subject of obtaining salmon eggs on a large 
scale was discussed, the writer advocating the plan of operating on the Pacific Coast,' 
where millions of eggs could be taken at the cost of a few hundred thousand obtained 
on the Atlantic Coast. One of the results of this meeting was that the writer was 
commissioned by Professor Baird to go to the Pacific Coast in search of salmon eggs. 
Professor Baird’s instructions were contained in the following letter: 
United States (Ammission oe Fish and Fisheries, 
Eastport, Maine, July 6, 1872- 
Dear Sir: An appropriation of $15,000 was made by Congress, at its last session, to be expended 
under the direction of tbe United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, for introducing salmon, 
sbad, and other useful food-iishes into new and suitable waters of the United States. At the recom- 
mendation of members of the Fish-Cuitnrists’ Association and certain State fish commissioners, 
I hereby appoint yon a deputy commissioner, to proceed without delay to the Pacific Coast, in 
connection with this object. Yonr compensation in full for your services will be $250 a mouth, your 
pay commencing when you start for the West. 
The sum of $750 will be allowed you for expenses of traveling and of investigation for the fiscal 
year, and a further allowance of $1,250 for the same period will be made for the cost of erecting and 
maintaining a hatching establishment, and for other necessary expenses connected with the packing 
and transportation of the eggs, etc. — $5,000 in all. 
Yon will proceed to California at the earliest iiossible moment, and on arriving there put yourself 
in communication with the commissioners of the State of California and endeavor to obtain their 
assistance in yonr mission. If you can make arrangements to obtain, at reasonable cost, all the eggs 
that you desire in California, without iiroceeding farther north, you are hereby authorized to do so, 
but otherwise yon will extend yonr journey to the Columbia Eiver and adjacent waters, and if the 
season is not too far advanced you will iiroceed at once to make arrangements for obtaining a supply 
of salmon eggs; previously, however, by examination and counsel with those who are familiar with 
the subject, fixing upon the species best adapted for the purposes in question. 
The general treatment of the whole subject must be left largely to your discretion, bearing in 
mind that the object is to lay the foundation of an arrangement, on a large scale, for obtaining eggs 
of the best varieties of Salmonidfr and other food-fishes of the western coast. 
Very truly yours, Spencer F. Baird, 
Commissioner. 
Livingston Stone, Esq., 
Charlestown, New Hampshire. 
Perliaps I can not better give an account of what immediately followed than by 
quoting from my first report to Professor Baird, dated December 9, 1872:^ 
In pursuance of your instructions, received in .July last, to proceed without delay to the Pacific 
Coast and make arrangements for obtaining a supply of salmon eggs, I left Boston on the 1st day of 
August for San Francisco, with this object. As I was directed in subsequent letters to obtain, if 
possible, the eggs of the Sacramento Eiver salmon, I set myself at work at once to ascertain the time 
and place of the siiawuiug of these fish, but, singular as it seems, I could find no one in San Fran- 
cisco who was able to say either where or when the salmon of the Sacramento spawned. 
Fortunately, a short time after, I was introduced, through the kindness of Hon. B. B. Eedding, 
a member of the board of California commissioners of fisheries, to Mr. Montague, the chief engineer 
* It may be well to mention here that the subject of this paper, viz, the quinnat salmon, must not 
be confounded with the other salmon of the Pacific Coast. The Atlantic has but one kind of salmon 
(Snlmo salar), but the Pacific has five species, as follows: The qni)inat salmon (Oncorhynchus ischa- 
wytscha), the blueback salmon ( 0 . nerlca), the silver salmon ( 0 . Msuieh), the dog salmon (O. keta), and 
the humpback salmon (O. {/orbuscha). In addition to these the steelhead (Salmo gairdneri) is commonly 
known as a salmon, though really a trout. Although these salmon in some general features resemble 
the quinnat, they’ are very different from fhat fish in many' matters of detail. 
* United States Fish Commissioners Eeport, 1872-73, page 168. 
