BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 229 



over the eggs daily until the season for hatching arrives or the eggs 

 are sent oft' for distribution. Some of them, I think, have picked over 

 the eggs every year of the ten years that the station has been in exist, 

 ence on the river, and the station could hardly get through the picking 

 season without them. 



The eggs develop rapidly, and very soon after the hatching troughs 

 begin to fill up, it becomes necessary to prepare for packing them. The 

 packing of a few thousand salmon eggs is not a very laborious task, 

 but the packing of a million for a journey across the North American 

 continent is a considerable undertaking. In 1878 8,000,000 eggs were 

 packed and forwarded from this station, entirely filling two large freight 

 cars. No little preparation is required for packing eggs on so large a 

 scale. Strange to say, no suitable moss for packing is to be found 

 within 50 or 60 miles of the fishery, and the only moss that I know of, 

 even as near as that, is found at the base of Mount Shasta, and nowhere 

 else. Accordingly, we have to get our packing moss gathered at this 

 great distance, and brought to the station on mule teams. As soon as 

 it arrives it is washed and twice picked over very carefully, after which 

 it forms an excellent packing material. A suitable outside packing 

 around the box of moss and eggs, to protect them from changes of tem- 

 perature, has always been an important desideratum with us. Sawdust 

 is practically unattainable, the cost of getting it to the station being 

 too great. The first year (1872) we used hay. The second year (1873) 

 we also used hay, and with the comparatively few eggs distributed 

 those years, the expense was not very burdensome, but when we came 

 to pack 4,000,000 eggs the next year (1874) it became essential to look 

 around for some material for the outside packing less expensive than 

 hay, for which we then paid $00 a ton. The Indians again came to the 

 rescue in this emergency. Armed with knives of every description that 

 they could find, they went out into the hills, and cut down several tons 

 of the ferns which grow abundantly about the fishery, and brought 

 them into camp. These ferns made an excellent packing material, and 

 the cost was nothing like the cost of hay. We have used the ferns every 

 year since, to pack and crate the boxes of eggs in. 



In 1874, the first year that salmon eggs were packed on a large scale, 

 another emergency connected with the packing developed itself. It 

 arose from the fact that so many eggs must be forwarded at once. A 

 car-load must be got ready and packed at one time. No plan that I 

 had hitherto adopted would accomplish the packing of so many eggs 

 in so short a time. So this year a division of labor was effected, and a 

 system adopted substantially as follows : At the upper end of the hatch- 

 ing-house four packing-boxes are placed side by side, and at each box 

 stands a man who packs the eggs in the box, and opposite him another 

 man who helps spread the moss. At each end of the line of packers are 

 seated four Indian girls with nippers to pick out the dead eggs. Just 

 below the packers are two large tubs, kept full by a constantly-running 



