Prof. Agassiz on Viviparous Fishes from California. 381 
“T regret much that the information which I sent you avails 
so little, without the actual specimens of the fish and young; 
these however, I have already taken active measures to obtain, | 
and trust before many months to be able to send you at least 
specimens of the female, if not of the young. I should at the 
time I caught the fish have preserved them in alcohol, but at that 
time I was attached to the Navy Yard commission, and was with 
my comrades industriously prosecuting the examination of the 
vicinity of San Salita, as to its adaptiveness for a navy yard, and 
could not leave for San Francisco without suspending the work, 
and the means for preserving the fish could not be otherwise pro- 
cured. This explains the apparent culpable indifference which 
allowed me to omit preserving the specimens. I have sent direc- 
tions to California to have caught for me several of the’ fish, and 
if at the present time (September 16th, 1852) the females were 
pregnant (which is not probable) to take from one the bag con- 
taining the young, and put mother and young in the jar of alcohol, 
and to put several other females untouched, into the jar also. 
These specimens will by direction and examination even if they 
be not pregnant, and if the jar contains no young, determine the 
truth and accuracy of the statement I made in my former letter 
on the subject. This fact proved by these specimens, it will be 
very easy to obtain during the next spring and summer, specimens 
in all stages of pregnancy. I think, if 1 remain in the country, 
he fish I refer to, in my opinion, does not exist in 
very great numbers even in the waters of San Salita Bay, for the 
two which I caught on this occasion were the only ones which I 
fell in with, though I fished in the same place probably four 
times. ‘There was a little peculiarity perhaps in the circumstance 
of my taking them asI did. 1 had previous to this time, tried 
my rod and line, as I mentioned before, four times, always wit 
success as regards groupers, perch, &c., without a sight of the 
singular fish under consideration. A few days, perhaps a week, 
after the four trials, and on the 7th of June, 1 rose early in the 
morning for the purpose of taking a mess of fish for breakfast, 
pulled to the usual place, baited with crabs, and commenced fish- 
ing, the wind blowing too strong for profitable angling ; never- 
theless on the first and second casts, I fastened the two fishes, 
male and female, that I write about, and such were their liveli- 
ness and strength, that they endangered my slight trout rod. I 
however succeeded in bagging both, though in half an hours sub- 
sequent work I got not even a nibble from either this or avy other 
species of fish. 1 determined to change the bait, to put upon my 
hook a portion of the fish already canght, and cut for that purpose 
into the largest of the two fish caught. 1 intended to take a piece 
