BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 223 



The California salmon was formerly known as "Salmo quinnat." It 

 is now called " Oncorhyncus choiieJ;a. n It is, when prime, a handsome 

 silvery fish, resembling - very much in shape and general appearance the 

 salmon of the Atlantic coast of both America and Europe (Salmo solar), 

 except that it has dark spots on its back and sides that do not belong 

 to Sal mo solar. The Sacramento salmon, which is the same fish which 

 is found in the Columbia and other rivers on the Pacific coast in great 

 quantities, averages in weight in the Sacramento River from fifteen to 

 twenty pounds, and is found in that river every month of the year, being in 

 best condition during the three winter months, and in the greatest abun- 

 dance, probaly, in March, April, and August. When the salmon enter 

 the Sacramento from the ocean they are, as just mentioned, handsome, 

 silvery fish, but they fall off in looks and quality every week after they 

 leave tide- water and enter upon their journey up the river to their spawn- 

 ing grounds. When we take them full of ripe eggs, in September, at 

 the hatching station, they are mostly of a dark-olive color, the females 

 being distended with spawn, and the males often very thin and deep, 

 sometimes almost black, and frequently having a broad red band on 

 their sides extending their whole length from head to tail. After spawn- 

 ing, and sometimes before, both sexes become emaciated, weak, and 

 covered with white spots. At this stage the salt water of the ocean is 

 the only thing that will revive them ; and those that do not reach it in 

 season, and this includes about all that go up the McCloud Eiver, die 

 of sickness and exhaustion. 



METHOD OF CAPTURING PARENT SALMON. 



Our methods of capturing the parent salmon and confining them, for 

 the purpose of securing their eggs, have been various. 



The first year, besides hauling the seine for them, we obtained what 

 we could from the fish-baskets of the Indians. This latter method fur- 

 nished only a meager and precarious supply, aud was entirely abandoned 

 after the first season. 



The second year I had to adopt some means of keeping the salmon in 

 confinement after they were caught, because, in order to secure a large 

 number of eggs, I began fishing several weeks before the beginning of 

 the spawning season. I hoped, by catching the salmon early in the 

 reason and confining them, to have a large number on hand when the 

 spawning season came. This plan, however, only led to a succession 

 of disappointments j for wherever we put the salmon they would die in 

 a week or two. We put them in large plank boxes anchored in the 

 river, with great apertures in them to insure a good circulation of water. - 

 We built capacious pens in the river by driving stakes into the bed of 

 the stream ; we built ponds on shore, supplied with a constant stream 

 of river water, and we tried every expedient we could think of to keep 

 them alive in confinement, but all to no avail. The imprisoned fish 

 would spend their whole time in efforts to escape, and in not many days 



