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brook trout: and thereafter the entire range of the salmon and 
trout families, as far as they were within the reach of the 
operators, were combined in many and curious proportions.” 
The earliest hybrids to mature their ova were the cross 
between the male California salmon and the female brook 
trout. This took place in the year 1879. They not only be- 
came gravid, but ascended the spawning races as naturally as 
those of either distinct species. But as they deposited no eggs 
and did not appear to mate, an examination was made, and it 
was ascertained that they were all females. In all subsequent 
operations, however, the proportion of each sex has been about 
equal. 
The cross of the male brook trout and the female salmon 
trout, the Salmo fontinalis, with the Salmo confinis, matured ova 
in October, 1880. There were about 72,000 eggs cast, which 
hatched as readily as those of either parent, although it was 
found that a larger percentage of them could be impregnated 
with the milt of the male brook trout than with the milt of 
their own kind. The percentage of fertility was good, and the 
young proved to be perfectly healthy and as able to stand the 
struggle for existence as any of their brethren of pure strain. 
At the first cross one half of the salmon trout was eliminated, 
their young impregnated with the milt of the male brook trout 
left only a quarter of the coarser parent, and then came those 
which were seven-eighths brook trout to one-eighth salmon 
trout, which is as far as we have got at the present time. The 
young of each of these generations show the effects of the cross. 
The first in descent had none of the carmine specks which are 
the distinguishing feature of the “speckled trout” of our 
brooks. In the second generation the spots began to appear, 
and in the last they are distinctly visible, although fewer in 
number than in the trout of Sangre Azul. In the year 1883 
there were distributed to the brooks of the State 45,300 hybrid 
fry which were one-half salmon trout and one-half brook trout, 
and in 1884 a second planting of 79,000 three-quarter brook 
trout was made. The first, which were deposited in wild 
waters, were found in six months to have attained a growth of 
