

JuLy 27, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
14t 

The Fish and Fisheries of California. 
Tue fish fauna of a country is determined 
largely by conditions affecting the waters of the 
country. Most fishes are extremely sensitive 
.to changes of heat or cold. Where, as is some- 
times the case, the temperature of the water 
changes abruptly at any given point, the char- 
acter of the fish will be found to change equally. 
A very little cold is sufficient to benumb and 
paralyze a fish of the tropics. I have seen in 
the East Indies, when the water suffers a slight 
chill, which brings it down perhaps to 80 de- 
grees, the cutlass fish, ordinarily very active, 
lying stupid and inert on the surface of the 
water. On the other hand, the fishes of cold 
regions cannot endure any heat to which they 
are not accustomed, and doubtless the fishes 
of the ocean depths would be suffocated by the 
temperature of the surface of the water. 
With reference to the effect of the tempera- 
ture, a division may be made in the California 
fishes at Point Concepcion into cold and warm 
water fishes. Of course the two categories are 
not sharply divided at Point Concepcion. Many 
of the northern species are found to the south 
of this point in deeper water, or among the 
rocks, some even extending in range far down 
into the waters of Mexico. On the other hand, 
many southern species find their way northward 
as far as San Francisco. Others of them come 
northward in summer, returning to the south 
with the approach of winter. Thus many, even 
of the properly southern species, are found regu- 
larly in the Bay of Monterey. 
About 165 of the 435. California species of fish 
may be referred to the cold water fauna. These 
are fishes which live near the shore and in the 
cold current which sweeps along our coast, 
rendering its waters everywhere less warm than 
in corresponding regions on the Atlantic side. 
To the semi-tropical or warm water fauna about 
117 of the California species may be referred. 
These occur to the south of Point Concepcion 
and beyond the reach of the cold northern cur- 
rents. 
Of the 165 species that belong to the north of 
Point Concepcion, we have two very distinct 
categories. One comprises the Arctic and sub- 
Arctic fishes, such as the halibut, the sturgeon, 
the herring and several varietieseof the flounders. 
With these also are a great body of peculiarly 
Californian types of fishes, which are scarcely or 
not at all represented in other regions, and 
which evidently had their origin on this coast. 
Conspicuous among these are the ‘various 
species of surf fishes, commonly and wrongly 
known as “perch,” all ‘of them viviparous. 
Various species of rock fishes—red, green and 
black—which go under the general name of 
rock cod, are also abundant. The presence of 
these two types, both viviparous, together with 
the pectiliar type of coast salmon, may be held 
as the most remarkable features of the fish fauna 
of California. 
The species which belong to the south. of 
Point Concepcion are all closely allied to tropi- 
cal forms and their origin has evidently been 
through migrations from the south. They be- 
long, as a rule, to types which are widely. dif- 
fused throughout the warm waters of the trop- 
ics, and are not distinctly Californian. Their re- 
lations are with the West Indian fauna rather 
than with the other California forms. 
Almost equal in importance to the effect of 
temperature is the element of depth as affecting 
the distribution of fishes. The great majority 
of the marine fishes that we know well, or that 
we recognize as food fishes, are shore species 
inhabiting depths of from 1 to 15 fathoms. The 
great variety of oceanic life is found within this 
range, through which the light and heat of the 
sun readily penetrate. As we go lower down we 
find that the shore fauna disappears. The 
greenish-colored shore fishes give place at 50 to 
100 fathoms to other species, the prevailing 
color of which is red. The green and gray 
colors of the shallower regions match the colors 
of the sand and kelp.. The red colors harmonize 
with the sea mosses among which the red fishes 
live. In still greater depths, where the light 
and heat have disappeared, the prevailing hues 
are violet or black, the color of darkness. 
From the depths of the ocean off the conti- 
nental slope of the coast of California about 100 
species of deep-sea fishes have been obtained by 
the dredgings of the United States Fish Com- 
mission steamer Albatross. These deep-sea 
creatures are, as a rule, very soft in body, al- 
most black in color, and many of them are 
covered with phosphorescent spots, by means of 
which they light their way in the darkness. 
They live in the open sea at a depth of from two 
to five miles, and their soft bodies at this depth 
are rendered firm by the tremendous pressure 
of the water. In their native haunts the heat 
and light of the sun scarcely penetrates; the 
darkness is almost absolute, and the ,tempera- 
ture of the water at the point of freezing. These 
creatures constitute, for the most part, groups 
by themselves, not being descended from the 
shore species of the same region, and forms in 
all parts of the ocean from the poles to the 
equator. 
The fresh waters of California contribute 
about forty-five species. These are about 
equally divided between the great basin of the 
Sacramento and the San Joaquin, and the basin 
of the Colorado. Eight or ten of these are 
trout, the rest are classed under. the head of 
chubs and suckers. 
About twenty only of the fresh-water fishes 
are ranked as food fishes, and of these only 
seven or eight species are considered of much 
value as such. Of the pelagic fishes 133 species 
are properly to be called food fishes. They 
occur more or less frequently in the markets 
and are fit in varying degrees for table use. 
The remaining specjes, either on account. of 
smallness ‘of size, ill-flavor, of tastelessness of 
flesh, are not used for food at all, or else only 
in a salted or dried condition. Such use being 
limited largely to the Chinese to whose soups 
and chowders nothing seems to come amiss. 
Of less importance, but still a determining 
factor in the distribution of fishes, is the char- 
acter of the food supply. Each species thrives 
best where those creatures on which it naturally 
feeds are most abundantly found. The her- 
bivorous fishes live in the tide pools where they 
can feed upon the small sea weeds. The crab- 
eating fishes are found among the rocks. Those 
which feed on the herrings and_ silversides 
flourish best in the open waters of the ocean. 
The character of the bottom has its im- 
portance also. The flounders for the most part 
live on a bottom of sand. The so-called rock 
cod abounds about sunken rocks and_ banks. 
Other species are found only where the bottom 
is soft and muddy. The difference between the 
fishes commonly found at Monterey and Santa 
Cruz indicates clearly the difference in the char- 
acter of the bottom conditions at these two op- 
posite points on the same bay. It was possible 
by a mere inspection of the fishes in a collec- 
tion recently received from the harbor of 
Swatow, China, to determine that this harbor 
lies not over a rock basin, but a bottom of mud 
upon which flows the waters of estuary. 
The character of the water as to clearness or 
otherwise constitutes another element of im- 
portance. About the rocks of La Jolla and 
Santa Catalina the waters are as clear as those 
about a coral reef in the tropics. In these waters 
are found the same types of fishes that would 
be found about a coral bank. The species are 
not the same as those of the far south, but their 
general character is the same. On the other 
hand, in the more or less muddy waters of the 
Bay of San Francisco, only those species are 
found to which the cloudy or muddy condition 
of the water is not objectionable, and the 
brilliant colors of the clear water fishes are 
totally wanting among them. 
With regard to preference in the matter of 
surroundings, the fishes of the California coast 
may again be divided. Of the pelagic species, 
about twenty visit our coast. These are fishes 
which swim freely in the open sea, after moving 
over hundreds of miles of area, and belonging to 
no one country. more than another. Of species 
living about the rocks and feeding upon the 
small animals which abound in the sea weed, 
there are fifty species, thirty of them belonging 
to the group known as “rock cod.” All of these 
are food fishes, though not all of the best qual- 
- ~ “~ 
ity. Of the kelp fishes there are about twenty- 
five species. These fishes are confined chiefly 
to the beds of kelp which are a special char- 
acteristic of the Californian coast, nothing like 
them existing on the Atlantic coast. Some of 
the fish feed upon the sea weeds themselves, 
more upon the mollusks and crabs which find 
their home among the marine plants and the 
rocks about which they grow. Of the 145 
species which frequent by preference the waters 
with smooth or sandy bottom, some swim near 
the surface of the water, often entering the bays 
in large shoals; others, as the flounders, lie on 
the bottom, and in color are scarcely distin 
guishable from. the sand. There are ten ana- 
dromous species—that is, species which ascend 
the rivers in the spring or fall for the purpose 
of spawning in fresh water, but which spend the 
greater part of their lives in the sea. Of these 
species, the most important is the salmon, the 
largest in size, the sturgeon. Four species are 
confined chiefly to the brackish mouths of 
streams, a very small portion, because Cali- 
fornia has very little of estuary waters. Finally, 
about forty species are. confined exclusively to 
the rivers. 
The fisheries of the Pacific coast as a whole 
are relatively little developed. The bays of San 
Francisco, of Monterey, and of San Diego, and 
a region about Avalon, are fully fished—over 
fished at times—but the great length of the coast 
remains almost untouched. It has been esti- 
mated that on the 7,000 miles of the coast of 
California, Oregon and Washington, the fish- 
eries are about equal to those on 5co miles of 
the coast of New England. The value of the 
product is about the same in the two districts. 
and may be roughly set down at $15,000,000 per 
year. Of this amount the salmon fisheries of 
the Columbia represent between a fourth and a 
third; California’s portion would be about $4,- 
000,000. This represents for California .a total 
catch of from thirty to forty million pounds of 
fish a year. . 
A rough estimate in pounds of the distribution 
of this product among the several counties of 
the State would be as follows: 

COO FICRE FOU CES COCO AOC ORCA HA SOAEAE 15,000,000 
Rsainvel ira aaa Kiel aieye iolnin: dale aYoieaeveia’evaicteivineiae ticans 1,500,000 
Bsomaiptnveluinisibie (naihio/¥ a wWalealntw' oe. /dis e/e' ei cure isla aee.ele we 2,000,000 
Ry Ore ere seen. 2, cee ee, eae 12,000,000 
1,000,000 
250,000 
200,000 
5,000 
250,000 
000 
90,000 
The Bay counties 
Humboldt 
Monterey 
Sacramento 
Del Norte 
SON Otlammeamee Naeem sea CE BL cI one ck ree 
San Luis Obispo 
Mendocino 


Los Angeles 
Santa Cruz 
San Diego 
Ventura 
Orange .. 
Inland fishes 
2,000 
6,000 
500,000 

(SOE on ogdacodeautodacc bree Ren eee aaa ane 36,463,000 
The salmon fisheries of the Sacramento are 
chiefly in the counties of Solano and Contra 
Costa. For a number of years these fisheries 
steadily declined as a result of over-fishing and 
of the destruction of the spawning beds by the 
refuse from the lumbering and placer mining 
industries. Practically the only spawning beds 
left in the Sacramento basin were those in the 
river itself about Red Bluff. The United States 
Fish Commission came to the rescue, establish- 
ing hatchery stations at Baird and Battle Creek, 
and from these repopulating the river. At pres- 
ent more salmon run in the Sacramento than 
when the stream flowed through the primeval 
wilderness. 
The salmon of the Sacramento is the quinnat, 
or king salmon, the largest and finest of all the 
salmon tribe. It reaches in four years an aver- 
age weight of 16 pounds. When mature, at the 
age of three or four years, it leaves the sea 
and runs up the streams to spawn, starting in 
‘the spring or early summer and spawning in 
the fall. The salmon do not feed after leaving 
the sea and while on the spawning journey. 
They are therefore best when taken in or near 
the sea. After spawning both the male and 
female die. The female salmon lays from 4,000 
to 5,000 eggs. As naturally spawned, only one 
in a hundred or more of these hatches and: 
escapes its enemies. The young salmon drifts 
downward to the sea, “tail foremost” in the old 
(Continued on page 158:) 

