Packing and Transportation of Salmon-eggs. iy 
alive over very long distances.** The California Salmon- 
Hatching Station of the United States Fish Commission fur- 
nishes a good illustration of this. From this station salmon- 
eggs are sent alive to points sixteen thousand miles apart. 
The sphere of usefulness, therefore, of the California 
establishment has a radius of eight thousand miles, which 
‘enables it, theoretically, to inclose within reach of its 
beneficent influence an area of two hundred million 
square miles. | : 
This shows how immensely the possibility of the wide dis- 
tribution of salmon-eggs increases the utility of the efforts 
that are being made in the culture of salmon. 
Another circumstance about the distribution of salmon- 
eggs which deserves mention, is that it is no longer experi- 
mental, as was once believed. It was thought not very long ago 
that when salmon-eggs were sent to a distant point it was a 
mere matter of luck and chance whether they reached their des- 
tination alive. It is not so at all. The principles involved 
are so simple, and the rules of packing and transportation 
are so clear and so certain in their action, that if salmon- 
eggs are lost in the course of a month's journey, it is be- 
cause of ignorance or carelessness in the packing or in 
the care of the eggs in transit, and is not a question of 
‘luck or chance at all, except in this particular, viz., if you 
are obliged to let the eggs go out of your hands, then it 
becomes a matter of chance whether the express agents or 
others in charge of them will faithfully carry out their in- 
structions. As a general thing, they do not. 
* The longest distance ever successfully overcome in the transportation or fish eggs, I be- 
jieve, was between Charlestown, New Hampshire, and Christchurch, New Zealand, being up- 
wards of eleven thousand five hundred miles. This) was in the case of a lot of ‘Sal- 
mo Fontinalis *’ eggs, which were shipped from New Zealand by Messrs. Stone and Hooper, 
Charlestown, New Hampshire, in the fall of 1876. 
