PROPAGATION OF SALMON ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
209 
Previous to this year the Pacific Coast, as a source of supply in procuring salmon 
eggs, was an untried field. No one knew anything definite about it. Everything 
was conjectural. The sending off*, also, of the delicate embryos packed in wooden 
boxes, to run the gauntlet of the vague and innumerable dangers of a journey across 
the continent, seemed like sailing out into an undiscovered sea; but now that the 
season was over the untried held had become familiar ground, and a patli over the 
unknown sea had been found. In the number of eggs procured the results of the first 
year were small, bnt in the practical demonstration of what it was possible to accom- 
plish on the Pacific Coast, the results of the first year’s operations on the McCloud 
equal or surpass those of any subsequent season. 
It may also be mentioned here that a valuable mass of information concerning 
the natural history of the salmon of the Sacramento was obtained this year, and 270 
valuable specimens of the fauna of California, chiefly fishes, of course, were collected 
and forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution. 
The next year (1873), wishing to follow up the lead now clearly brought to view. 
Professor Baird dispatched the writer a second time to California, with instructions to 
procure as many salmon eggs as possible. 
Here I will quote from my repoils : 
Having secured supplies and men for the season’s campaign, I left this (San Francisco) city again 
for McCloud River on the 5th of August, arriving at camp the next morning at daylight. 
The year before, the idea of using McCloud River water not having suggested itself, I had been 
obliged to locate the camp and hatching works at a considerable distance from the river in order to 
obtain brook water for maturing the eggs. The inconvenience of this arrangement, which placed the 
fishing-grounds and hatching-works a mile apart, is ap]rarent. In fact, the constant necessity for 
crossing and carrying materials from one point to the other, frequently in a temperature of 100° F. in 
the shade, became so intolerable before the season was over, with its consequent labor, risk, and loss 
of time, that I resolved, if possible, the next season to bring the camp, hatching-works, fishing- 
grounds, and stage communication together at one place. This I was fortunately enabled to do by 
using the river water for hatching at a point where the California and Oregon stage road touches the 
west bank of the McCloud. The first plan for conveying the water supply from a higher part of the 
river to the hatching works was not successful, on account of there not being sufficient fall for a 
satisfactory hatching apparatus, and for other reasons. This plan was therefore abandoned and the 
attempt was made to raise water from the river by a wheel placed in the current. This method 
worked to our entire satisfaction. 
Having moved the station to the bank of McCloud River, we began fishing in midsummer, think- 
ing that the salmon could be caught and safely confined until the coming of the spawning season 
rendered them ready for use. In this we met with a great and complete disappointment. 
The confinement of the parent salmon in suitable iuclosures, though it seems so simple a matter, 
was a very trying and difficult problem to solve, and gave us no end of trouble. To show the charac- 
ter of this difficulty, I will give my experience in the order in which it came. We began building our 
inclosures by staking down a small circular fence of stakes in a shallow place in the river near the 
shore. The stakes were driven down one by one, very firmly, and then firmly bound together and 
held in their place by withes. The main objection at first to this was that it was on too small a scale. 
We then built other inclosTires on the same plan, but larger and deeper. This, however, gave the fish 
more sooi>e for jumping, and, although the top of the stakes was several feet above the surface of the 
water in the iuclosure, the salmon easily jumped over them and escaped into the river. We then put 
a covering, or roof, over the corral on a level with the top of the fence. The salmon now, although 
they could not escape by jumping out, were no less persistent in their attempts to do so, and literally 
wore and lashed themselves to death in their frantic and ceaseless efforts to escape. I then built a 
large, covered, wooden box, 16 feet long and about 4 feet deep and 5 feet broad, with wide seams 
between the boards to let the water through, and anchored it in the current. As the box, when soaked, 
sank nearly its depth in the water, the salmon had no chance to jump and lash themselves as in the 
staked inclosure, and we flattered ourselves we had found the solution of this troublesome problem 
F. C. B. 180C— 14 
