THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
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in diameter. They are perfectly globular, and of a trans- 
parent pink colour. That of the salmo quinnat or Cali- 
fornian salmon, is considerably larger, and is about three- 
tenths of an inch in diameter. They are very easily 
measured in this way. Take a board and place it in 
a sloping position, and lay a foot rule on its side, with 
the graduated fedge on the side next the highest part 
of the board. Then place a few eggs above the rule 
on the board and cause them to run together, and then 
count the number which lie opposite three or four inches, 
and find the average number to the inch. One lot of 
English salmon ova that I measured, were exactly four to 
the inch, or a quarter of an inch in diameter. The eggs in 
another lot were nine to two inches, or two ninths of an 
inch in diameter, and the Californian salmon ova is almost 
exactly a third of an inch in diameter, being much larger 
than that of the English variety. The number of ova 
deposited by a female trout or salmon, is about 1000 to each 
pound weight of the fish. Different fish vary greatly in 
the number of ova, to the size or weight of the fish. Frank 
Buckland in his very valuable work on “ Fish Hatching,” 
gives the result of careful calculations of the number of 
eggs, which different kinds of fish are found to contain. A 
jack of 4flbs. weight had 42,840, a perch of ilb. 20,592, 
a roach of fib. 480,480, a brill of 41bs. 239,775, a turbot of 
8lbs. 385,200, and a cod of 20lbs. 4,872,000. From the 
enormous quantity of ova produced, it will be seen that if 
anything near these numbers were to come to maturity, 
both rivers and seas would become as Punch’s Irishman 
said, “ stiff wid ’ em,” and as we do not find this redun- 
dancy of fish life, there must be an enormous waste or loss, 
of both ova and young fish. In fact the proportionate 
numbers of ova to the size of the fish, may be taken as an 
indication of the risk to be run by the fish, which an 
