PROPAGATION OF SALMON ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
221 
METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION ON THE PACIFIC 
COAST FOR CAPTURING BREEDING SALMON, TAKING AND SHIPPING THE EGGS, 
ETC., WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BAIRD STATION, CALIFORNIA. 
CAPTURING THE BREEDING SALMON. 
The first Pacific Coast salmon captured in the United States for breeding purposes 
were caught iu an Indian “basket trap,” on McCloud River, in 1872. The reason that 
they were taken in this way was because there had been no time for making ])repara 
tions for catching the salmon in any other way, the writer, who had been commissioned 
by Professor Baird, United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, to procure 
eggs of these salmon, having arrived on the McCloud just iu the midst of the spawning 
season. Professor Baird’s report for that year reads as follows : 
The propriety was strongly urged at the Boston meeting of sending some experienced fish-culturist 
to the west coast for the purpose of securing a large amount of spawn of the California salmon. At 
the suggestiou of the meeting, Mr. Livingston Stone was engaged to undertake this work, and pro- 
ceeded to California as soon as he could arrange his affairs for the purpose. The experiment was, of 
course, uucertaiu, in the entire al)sence of any reliable information bearing upon the natural history 
of the species. It was not even known at what i)eriod they spawned, although Mr. Stone was assured 
by professed experts, on his arrival in California, that this occurs late iu the month of September. 
After much fruitless inquiry, Mr. Stone at last learned, chiefly through Mr. B. B. Redding, fish 
commissioner of California, and through the chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, that the 
Indians speared salmon on McCloud River, a stream of the Sierra Nevada, emptying into Pitt River 
320 miles nearly due north of San Francisco. Proceeding to this station, in company with Mr. John G. 
Woodbury, of the Acclimatization Society, Mr. Stone immediately set to work in erecting the neces- 
sary hatching establishment, although, on account of the distance from any settlement and the 
absence of special facilities, he found the undertaking both difficult and expensive. The efforts of 
Mr. Stone and his party were prosecuted unintermittingly, day and night, for a sufficient length of 
time to prove that the season had almost entirely passed and that but few spawning fish remained. 
The basket trail above mentioned consists of a partial obstruction across the 
river, made of wickerwork, iu form having a getteral resemblance to the letter V, 
with the angle downstream. At the apex of the angle is a wicker basket, from 
which, if the tish fall into it, they can not escape. It should be mentioned here that 
after the breeding salmon ascend the river to spawti, they fall back after spawning, 
and gradually float, tail flrst, down the river, though occasionally they fall back iu 
this way before spawning. These traps are put across the river by the Indians iu 
order to capture the salmon, without, of course, any regard to the eggs they may 
contain. Fortunately, after the arrival of the writer on the McCloud, a few salmon 
that had not spawned fell into these traps, and for a slight money consideration given 
to the Indians the flsh were obtained and their eggs secured for maturing. 
As soon as circumstances rendered it practicable, a seine was procured and seiti- 
ing was begun in regular form in McCloud River; and from that time till now this 
method of seining with a sweep seine has been the best and the only successful method 
of capturing the parent salmon in the McCloud. Several experiments, however, have 
been tried, which may be worth mentioning, perhaps, simply to show that they are not 
satisfactory. 
