PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. A5 
An examination showed the pebbles to be incrusted with spawn, and 
as all the smelts I cooked were males, [ concluded that the females had 
first come in and cast their spawn and were succeeded by the males, 
who deposited their milt. I handled and noticed a great many, and 
cooked several dozens on two successive days, but did not notice a sin- 
gle female. This might have been purely accidental, and perhaps at 
another time the catch would have proved all females. 
On the first appearance of the fish, the Indians rush into the surf and 
press the outer edge of the net down firmly on the sand or shingle, the 
swash of the breaker forcing the smelts into the net. Then, as the 
water recedes, they turn round quickly and hold the net so that the 
undertow will force more smelts into it. In this way I saw them take 
at least a bushel at a single scoop. 
In their immense numbers, these smelts resemble the eulachon, 
(Osmerus pacificus) or candle-fish, which are taken in such enormous 
quantities at Nass River, in British Columbia, near the southern bound- 
ary of Alaska. 
After every scoop, the Indian, if successful, empties its contents on 
the beach, where the squaws and children quickly gather them into 
baskets, and carry them to the houses, where they are strung on strips 
of cedar bark and hung up to dry. The method of stringing them is to 
take each one separately and pass a half hitch with the bark around the 
head just back of the gills. This keeps each fish separate, and enables 
them to dry better. 
The Quillehutes still retain the ancient superstition, formerly so prev- 
alent among the coast tribes, relative to their fish, that the first ones 
must not be sold or given away to be taken to another place, nor must 
they be cut transversely, but split open with a muscle-shell. 
J was fortunate in obtaining quarters in the house of an Indian who 
had a cooking-stove, where we cooked our rations as suited us. One of 
the Indians of our party obtained some smelts, which he boiled for sup- 
per, cooking them in the Quillehute style; he gave me some, which I 
fried. No sooner did the Quillehutes learn that I was cooking some of 
their fish than two of the head chiefs, Howcattl and Klakistokar, came 
to see what I was doing, as they feared I would cut the fish with a knife; 
but I fried them whole, and when they saw me take the nice crispy 
smelts with my hand and eat them entire, without aid of knife or fork, 
they grunted forth their satisfaction, and allowed me to purchase as 
many as I wished to take away. But of salmon they would neither 
give or sell. The fall run of the Salmo canis and Salmo proteus had just 
commenced to come, and while they gave us all we could eat of their own 
cooking, in their own houses, they refused to sell or give a single fish to 
be taken away. They fully believed that if we took any salmon into 
our canoe, all the salmon would desert the Quillehute River and follow 
us to Neeah Bay, and if we had cut the smelts or salmon with a knife, 
they all would immediately disappear in the ocean and never return. 
