OPERATIONS ON THE m'CLOUD RIVER IN 1876. 941 



big day," as they call it. They commenced work as early as possible, 

 and although it rained in torrents all day, they had before night taken 

 and placed in the troughs over a million eggs, beating the " big day'" of 

 the previous year by about a hundred thousand, and taking more 

 salmon eggs than were ever taken before in the world in one day. It 

 is true the appended table giving the daily returns of eggs states 930,000 

 as the number taken on September 4, but this is because in idacing the 

 eggs in the troughs we undercount by about 10 per cent, to allow for 

 waste, and to make sure of having full measure when the eggs are 

 packed to send off. Any one who has had much to do with handling 

 fish-eggs will appreciate the value of this precaution. By the 8th of 

 September we had enough- eggs for distribution in this country, and 

 consequently stopped taking on that day, though I made arrangements 

 for taking another lot on the 16th and 17th of September for New 

 Zealand, it being necessary to take the New Zealand eggs on those days 

 in order to have them of just the right age to ship by the Australian 

 steamer, which was to sail from San Francisco on the 10th of October. 

 On these two days we took 630,300 more, making 7,498,500 in all, accord- 

 ing to our count, which, as before mentioned, was considerably below 

 the actual number. 



In the actual process of taking the eggs we'made some improvements 

 over previous years, the chief of which were securing a uniformity of 

 temperature for the eggs in their earlier development, and a greater 

 regularity in the time of attending to the various manipulations of the 

 eggs. To accomplish these results two long troughs were placed in the 

 spawning-shanty, with compartments just large enough for admitting 

 one spawning-pan in each, and a clock was hung upon the wall. The 

 trough was kept filled with fresh water from the river, which thus in- 

 sured an even temperature for all the pans which were placed in it. As 

 soon as a pan of eggs was taken, the time was noted and recorded, and 

 exactly four minutes afterward the water was added to the pan, and in 

 exactly an hour the eggs were washed and sent to the hatching-house. 

 The result of this case showed a great improvement in the vitality of 

 the eggs, the loss in taking them being much less than in previous 

 years. 



I tried another innovation this year, which perhaps deserves the name 

 of an improvement, and which consisted in taking a pailful of eggs at 

 .a time. For instance, a half dozen men would be ready with their 

 spawning-fish, and would, as rapidly ^s possible, take the eggs of all 

 their fish in one pail. If everything is ready, so that there is no delay, 

 five or six fish can be spawned in this way with safety. By this method 

 the eggs can be taken in larger bulk, and perhaps some time can be 

 saved by it, though I do not consider it a very great improvement over 

 the old plan of taking the eggs of one fish in each pan, which is a pretty 

 satisfactory way after all. 



During the first few days of the spawning season, while we were in 



