SALMON HATCHING ON m'cLOUD RIVER, CALIFORNIA, 1878. 761 



These, witlioiit doubt, were killed from overheating, as the moss and 

 eggs when oxjeued were steaming liot. The five crates this fall did not 

 X)resent this steaming or overheated appearance uj)on opening, yet this 

 opaque white line became visible almost immediately after opening and 

 being put in the troughs, and the one or two thousand that we saved 

 or picked out from the lot, hatched out in a few days after. This, to a 

 certain extent, would show that they must have had more than ordinary 

 warmth for their safety 5 otherwise they would not have hatched out so 

 prematurely. 



In order to get every good or apparently living c^g from the large 

 mass on the trays and in the troughs, we kept them on hand as long as 

 we could, in fact till they became unijleasant to the smell ; but during 

 this time there was no growth of fungus or byssus upon them. The 

 embryo or young fry inside (which was quite visible in all of the eggs) 

 turned that pallid or opaque white color which always denotes death. 

 I sent a lot of the eggs to Professor Baird that he might examine them ; 

 I did not hear of the result. 



I have packed and unpacked a very great many fish eggs, sometimes 

 with losses, but as a rule pretty successfully. The loss with these five 

 crates I must confess upsets me ; the more so, when you report all the 

 other consignments as unusually good. This being the case, my lot must 

 have come to grief in some one of the following ways, presuming they 

 arrived all safe at Chicago : 



1st. By detention or injury received at Chicago before transhipment. 



2d. By overheating or exposure, or both, in transitu here. 



3d. By rough, improper handling of the crates in transhipment from 

 place to place and on the cars. 



There was one thing which struck my attention in opening the first 

 crate, namely, the perfect state the ice was in in the ice chambers, the 

 appearance almost denoting that it had only just been jiut there; the 

 pieces of ice were large, almost filling up the chamber ; in others it was 

 not so apparent. I was under the impression at first that forty-eight hours 

 on an express car would have almost melted any ice put in at Chicago, 

 yet the weather was cool in the beginning of October, and the ferns in 

 the boxes may have kej^t the ice in the good condition in which it came 

 here. 



I must congratulate you upon your success in procuring the immense 

 number of eggs you did this season — some 12,000,000, I believe — and I 

 have much pleasure in acquainting you of my success at the several 

 establishments under my control, the returns from my assistants showing 

 up to the present time upwards of 8,000,000 of salmon eggs laid down. 

 The salmon, trout, and white-fish season being now in its jirime, and 

 being busily engaged in collecting the eggs, I cannot yet tell you the 

 result ; but I am fearful, the weather having been so very unfavorable, 

 we shall not secure the supply we should like to get. 



Let me hear from you, not only on this uni)leasant subject of the loss 



