There is no royal road to the restoration of an exterminated bird species.  Where the native seed still exists, by long labor and travail, thorough protection and a mighty long close season, it can be encouraged to breed back and return; but it is an evolution that can not be hurried in the least.  Protect Nature, and leave the rest to her.

With mammals, the case is different.  It is possible to restock depleted areas, provided Time is recognized as a dominant factor.  I can cite two interesting cases by way of illustration, but this subject will form another chapter.

In the transplantation of fishes, conditions are widely different, and many notable successes have been achieved.

One of the greatest hits ever made by the United States Bureau of Fisheries in the planting of fish in new localities was the introduction of the striped bass or rock-fish (Roccus lineatus) of our Atlantic coast, into the coast waters of California.  In 1879, 135 live fish were deposited in Karquines Strait, at Martinez, and in 1882, 300 more were planted in Suisun Bay, near the first locality chosen.

Twelve years after the first planting in San Francisco Bay, the markets of San Francisco handled 149,997 pounds of striped bass.  At that time the average weight for a whole year was eleven pounds, and the average price was ten cents per pound.  Fish weighing as high as forty-nine pounds have been taken, and there are reasons for the belief that eventually the fish of California will attain as great weight as those of the Atlantic and the Gulf.

The San Francisco markets now sell, annually, about one and one half million pounds of striped bass.  This fish has taken its place among anglers as one of the game fishes of the California coast, and affords fine sport.  Strange to say, however, it has not yet spread beyond the shores of California.

  Regarding this species, the records of the United States Bureau of
  Fisheries are of interest.  In 1897, the California markets handled
  2,949,642 pounds, worth $225,527.—­(American Natural History.)

Nowhere else in the world, we venture to say, were such extensive, costly and persistent efforts put forth in the transplantation of any wild foreign species as the old U.S.  Fish Commission, under Prof.  Spencer F. Baird, put forth in the introduction of the German carp into the fresh water ponds, lakes and rivers of the United States.  It was held that because the carp could live and thrive in waters bottomed with mud, that species would be a boon to all inland regions where bodies of water, or streams, were scarce and dear.  Although the carp is not the best fish in the world for the table, it seemed that the dwellers in the prairie and great plains regions would find it far better than bullheads, or no fish at all,—­which are about the same thing.