OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 315 
Indians, sell fresh salmon during the season when fishing with 
the net is prohibited. There is no legal prohibition against 
taking other fish, or shell-fish at any season of the year. 
The halibut are not sufficiently abundant on the coast to 
make the fishery for them a distinct branch of business. They 
are caught with a hook at sca in water varying from thirty to 
fifty fathoms deep, on rocky bottoms. The line called a “trawl- 
line” is about six hundred yards along, with numerous short 
lines and hooks, and is left six or eight hours in a place, and 
when drawn up has halibut, flounders, rock-fish, turbot, cod, 
and nearly all the large biting fish that come to the market. 
The bait used is chiefly sardines and herrings. 
The mackerel (Scomber diego), a good fish, but smaller than 
the Atlantic mackerel, is caught with a hook off the coast 
south of Point Conception. It is a surface fish, and bites 
greedily at a bit of white rag or shining fish-skin jerked 
through the water. It does not frequent bays, but is caught 
in the harbors of Catalina Island. A number of vessels are 
now employed in the mackerel fishery of California. 
The little brown rock-fish (Sebastes auriculatus), is caught 
in San Francisco Bay about the wharves; but the ‘other 
species are only found out in the open sea. They stay 
where the bottom is rocky, eat crabs and shell-fish, and bite 
freely at hooks. Most of them are caught near Punta Reyes 
and the Farallone Islands. The rock-tish are in the market 
and of equally good quality throughout the year. 
The turbot is canght with the trawlline throughout the 
year. Soles are caught with small mesh-nets in the shallow 
waters of the bay of San Francisco at all seusous of the year. 
There is no separate fishery for them; they are caught with 
numerous other species of small fishes, among which the 
smelts have an important-place. The smelts are much more 
abundant than on the Atlantic coast, go in large shoals, and 
are caught at all seasons. A large business might be done in 
salting them, but they are caught only for the fresh market. 
The anchovies are very numerous in San Francisco Bay, where 
