Collecting the Ova. 7 7 



which would perhaps be nearer the truth, 

 passed the line of our barricade before it was 

 completed. Not one of these salmon passed 

 that point on their return to the sea. If their 

 habit had been to return seaward after spawn- 

 ing, they would have crowded to the upper 

 side of the barricade, as the ascending salmon 

 did two months previously; but instead of 

 this, not one was observed to even show the 

 least disposition to pass it, although thousands 

 floated down dead, against the dam." 



Mr. Stone is convinced that the salmon have 

 no natural disposition to return to the sea, and 

 that they all die after spawning. At the end 

 of October, he says, " a live salmon can hardly 

 be found in the whole length of the McCloud 

 river anywhere." In the season when this 

 report of Mr. Stone was written (1874), the 

 total number of salmon eggs taken in this 

 river by him was 5,752,500, at a cost of seven 

 shillings per thousand. 



The collecting of salmon eggs for shipment 

 to Australia and New Zealand is graphic- 

 ally described by Frank Buckland, the cele- 

 brated pisciculturist, in the following letter, 

 which appeared in Land and Water of January 

 12, 1878 :— 



