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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



little doubt that the salmon fry in fresh water is able to take care of 

 itself. 



Our most extended observations were made on the migratory habits 

 of the fry, and I give a somewhat detailed account of them. In May 

 and June, 1898, we visited all parts of the Sacramento River, from its 

 source to Suisun and San Pablo bays, and even traveled 250 miles down 

 the river in a rowboat. We were equipped with fine-meshed seines 

 which we used wherever it seemed practicable or desirable to gain 

 information concerning the young salmon. We found them abun- 

 dant everywhere above the middle portion of the river, and in a decreas- 

 ing number all the way down to the mouth, and along the shores of the 

 bays. We considered them abundant when we caught anywhere from 

 25 to 400 at a single haul of a 50-foot seine. They were about two 

 inches long wherever taken. The same observations were made again 

 in July. In the headwaters, at the Sims, the fry were as abundant as 

 at the previous examination. There were fewer at Redding, very 

 few at the mouth of Battle Creek, and none at all below the latter 

 point. All that we had found on the previous examination had gone 

 down stream and had passed into salt water. As we afterward learned, 

 the salmon fry observed during this first examination were merely the 

 last of the season's migration, and not all of it, as we first supposed. 



While at Battle Creek Hatchery during October and November, 

 1898, we continued the observations by setting a trap in Battle Creek, 

 and so arranging it that it caught only such fishes as were going down 

 stream. By this means we soon learned that the fry begin their migra- 

 tion much earlier and younger than our previous summer's work had 

 led us to suppose. The following is a record of the daily catch of the 

 trap: 



