PACIFIC COAST FISHES. 367 



and sides. It arrives in immense schools as early as May, keeping 

 close to the surface, so it is caught quite readily. It bites freely 

 at a hook baited with salmon roe ; but the mode of taking it 

 adopted by the Indians is to push their canoes among a school, 

 and as it has a habit of leaping out of the water, the canoes are 

 filled in a short time, especially when the fish are crowded towards 

 the shore. It leaps to its death quite frequently, without any other 

 motive than sportive playfulness. It has rather good edible qual- 

 ities, but this does not induce fishermen to seek it. There are 

 quite a number of other varieties ; all are good pan fishes. 



When scientific attention was first attracted to them, four and 

 twenty years ago, it was generally supposed that the discovery 

 was a new one, but that was a mistake. In 1769, a transit of 

 Venus was to take place on the third of June. The event was of 

 such importance that an expedition was sent from Paris to observe 

 the transit at Cape St. Lucas, at the extreme southern end of 

 Lower California. After the astronomical observations were finished 

 the party went up the coast some distance. On their return to 

 Paris, the naturalist of the expedition reported that on the coast of 

 California were found sea perch which had their young alive, and 

 when the small fish were squeezed out of the parent they would 

 swim with great celerity. 



CLUPEID^. 



A few of the Clupea are occasionally met with on the California 

 coast. In Alaska the family is well represented, there being some 

 four or five species, which are allied to their Atlantic congeners, 

 though different in color and minor anatomical outlines. The 

 interior salt water basins contain myriads of them in June and 

 July ; and they extend in apparently the same density from the 

 Ochotsk and Behring Seas to the southern coast of Oregon. The 

 natives fish for them by placing their canoes among a school and 

 hurling them in with paddles containing rows of nails. While the 

 season lasts it is a busy one, for great are its results. This fish 

 could be used to excellent advantage as bait in fishing for cod ; or 

 if cured, it would meet a ready sale in the markets of California. 

 Myriads can be trapped in weirs or hauled with seines ; more 



