618 | REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [4] 
The California trout eggs seem to be peculiar in one respect, namely, 
that they will stand a great deal of sediment in the water without ap- 
pearing to suffer from it. 
Mr. Green, and Mr. Woodbury who hatched trout eggs for the Cali- 
fornia fish commission, both say that the eggs can be completely cov- 
ered with sediment for three days and come out all right. These eggs 
possess another peculiarity, viz, the embryo, previous to the develop- 
ment of the choroid pigment (eye spots), can be seen quite clearly 
through the shell, and the form of the fish is distinctly apparent for four 
or five days before the eye spots show, which usually happens about the 
eleventh day in water at 54° F. 
The California trout (Salmo iridea), which is the same fish as Suck- 
ley’s Salmo Masoni, is described by him under the latter name as fol- 
lows: ® 
SaLMo MAsont, Suckley. 
Sp. ch.—Body subfusiform; head well developed, forming the fifth of 
the total length. Maxillary shghtly bent, extending to a vertical line 
drawn inwardly to the posterior line of the orbit. Jaws equal. Anterior 
margin of dorsal fin a little nearer the extremity of the snout than the 
insertion of the caudal fin. Back brownish gray; upper surface of head 
blackish gray; sides silvery gray; finsash gray; dorsal and caudal spot- 
ted; upper regions of head and body studded with irregular black spots 
or specks; tail emarginate. 
I will merely add to this description that the McCloud River trout 
have a broad red stripe on their sides extending on each side of the 
lateral line from the mouth to the caudal fin. In the spawning season 
their silvery-gray color assumes a much darker hue, and the broad 
stripe turns to a deeper red. During the spawning season the trout get 
white and flabby and very poor, though they quickly recover when they 
begin to feed again. The tridea in the McCloud River, probably owing 
to more abundant feed and better water, grow to a larger size than in 
most other waters. The males in our ponds averaged last January 
about three pounds in weight and the females two pounds. There were 
several individual fish that weighed five pounds and six pounds, and 
even more. : 
Mr. Green describes them as being good feeders, hardy and well able 
to hold their own among other voracious fish, while at the same time 
they are not as destructive to smaller fish of their own kind as many 
other varieties of trout, notably the fontinalis, the common speckled 
brook trout of the Northern Atlantic States. Large and small fish can 
consequently be kept together in the same pond with comparative safety. 
Their favorite food is salmon eggs. After that come the caddis worms, 
with which the McCloud River abounds. These trout also feed on the 
dead salmon in the bottom of the river. Mr. Green says he has never 
found any smaller trout in the stomachs of the McCloud River variety. 
In other streams, however, when feed on the bottom is less abundant, 
