STONE ON THE SACRAMENTO SALMON. 173 



darkness beyond. The flaming pitcli-piue torches, stnck into the sandy 

 beach at intervals of 20 feet, to guide the boatman, the dusky forms of 

 a half-dozen Indians coiled around the fire, or stoically watching- the 

 fishing, the net, the fishing-boat, and the struggling ftsh, added to the 

 effect, and made a picture which, especially when the woods were set on 

 fire to attract the salmon, was one of surpasshig interest. It was quite 

 impressive, in the midst of these surroundings, to reflect that we were 

 beyond the white man's boundary, in the home of the Indians, where 

 the bear, tlie panther, the deer, and the Indian had lived for centuries 

 undisturbed. 



The Gggi were all taken in a dry pan, according to the new or Russian 

 method of impregnation, and the milt of the male added immediately. 

 Contrary to rule, I took a half a panful at a time instead of one layer, and 

 stirred the eggs up with my hand, as you would stir up a pan of flour. 

 After they were well mixed and had stood a minute or two, I filled up 

 the pan with water, gave them another stirring, and left them from 

 half an hour to an hour, at the end of which time I washed them, and 

 poured them into a pail of water, to be taken to the hatching-troughs. 

 When the eye-spots appeared, three weeks afterward, almost every egg- 

 was seen to have a fish in it, which proves two things: one is, that the 

 dry method will impregnate almost, if not wholly, a hundred per cent, 

 of tlie eggs; and the other is, that the old precaution, not to take over 

 one layer of eggs in the pan at a time, is wholly needless. In fact, I 

 believe I could take a ten-quart water-bucket half full of salmon eggs 

 at a time, without losing any more than by the one-layer method. 



I found that the Sacramento Elver salmon (i. e., the McCloud River 

 salmon) yield their eggs much more readily than the Eastern salmon. 

 It is not half the work to strip the fish, and they are in general more 

 easily handled than the salmon of the Atlantic rivers. 



8.— THE EaCIS OF THE SACRAMENTO RIVER SALMON. 



The eggs of the salmon of the Sacramento are larger and have a 

 more reddish tinge than those of the Atlantic salmon. There are less 

 eggs to the same weight of fish than with the eastern salmon, seven 

 hundred eggs to each pound of the parent fish being a large average. 

 We Qannot yet tell how the period of incubation of these eggs compares 

 with those of the Atlantic rivers, as it was impossible, with the varying 

 temperature of the hatching-brook, to get at the exact average tempera- 

 ture of the water. I may say, however, that the eggs first showed the 

 eye-spots in nineteen days, and that they hatched in forty-two days, and 

 the estimated average temperature of the water was 5S°-G0° F. 



9. — THE HATCHING-APPARATUS. 



Our hatching apparatus was all that could be wished. It consisted of 

 twenty-four troughs of sugar-[)ine, 16 feet long, 12 inches wide, and 4^ 

 inches deep, the inside surface of which was converted to a coal by 



