BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 227 



probably 20,000,000 if necessary. We always after tlii s adopted the same 

 plan of patting a barricade across the river, and by that means collect- 

 ing the parent salmon opposite the fishery, and the plan was always 

 followed by the same magnificent results. 



TAKING AND MATURING THE EGGS. 



I will now pass from the capture of the fish to the taking of the eggs. 

 About the middle of August we are in the habit of hauling the seine 

 every two or three days to examine the condition of the breeding sal- 

 mon. During the third week in August we generally find one or two ripe 

 females, and usually more than that number of males, but it is almost 

 always a week after this that the ripe fish appear in sufficient numbers 

 to warrant our beginning on the work of collecting eggs. There is an 

 extreme variation of about ten days in the time of the beginning of spawn- 

 ing season proper, in different years, but by the first week in Septem- 

 ber we are always fairly under way. Several days before this time 

 arrives we build, just above where the net is drawn, and extending over 

 the water's edge, a commodious brush house, which is simply a frame- 

 work of sufficient size, covered and inclosed with green boughs. In this 

 house the work of taking the salmon eggs is done. The covering with 

 green boughs is accomplished by Indians and is always an admirable 

 piece of work, and the whole structure answers its purpose to perfection. 

 A few feet out in the river from the water's edge are sunk three large 

 covered wooden corrals or pens, for holding the parent salmon when taken 

 from the net preparatory to spawning. A plank floor is built out from 

 the shore to the corrals, the whole being covered by the green boughs. 

 When the seine is drawn ashore, six or eight men immediately proceed 

 to examine the fish to see if they are ripe. The unripe ones are thrown 

 back into the river. The ripe fish are put in the corrals, one sex in one 

 compartment, the other in another one. We continue to haul the seine 

 till it is thought that enough ripe fish have been secured, and then the 

 fishermen if at night haul off and retire; if in the daytime, they proceed 

 to take the eggs. After I got this part of the work systematized we took 

 a million eggs a day with great ease, and could have taken many more 

 if necessary. So well is the work arranged now and so thoroughly does 

 every man understand and perform his part, that the spawning gang 

 will sometimes fill sixty pans, that is spawn sixty females, in sixty min- 

 utes. Any fish breeder reading this will appreciate the rapidity and 

 efficiency with which the work must be done to accomplish this result, 

 especially when it is added that every particular about the taking and 

 impregnating is minutely and carefully attended to, so that scarcely an 

 egg in the whole sixty pans is lost from injury or from undue lack of 

 impregnation. When the eggs have stood a sufficient length of time, 

 they are taken to the hatchiug house in buckets, and after being meas- 

 ured are put in the hatching troughs. 



As I have already mentioned, our first and primitive hatching works in 



