92 
THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
daily, and everything should be kept scrupulously clean. 
The alevins collect in clusters, in comers sheltered from 
the current, and lie on their sides closely packed together, 
like herrings in a barrel, sometimes taking a start and 
going about for a foot or two. 
The appearance of the newly-hatched fish, is not the least 
like that of a salmon. There appears a mass of transparent 
pink gum, with a thin body attached to it about three- 
quarters of an inch in length. This is the body of the 
fish, and the large, shapeless head, and enormous goggle 
eyes, are very remarkable ; the dorsal, or back fin, seems to 
extend the whole way from the head to the tail. The body 
and umbilical appendage, seem larger than the egg they 
have just emerged from. The sac is elongated and tapers 
slightly, and contains the food required by the fish during 
its alevin stage. As the alevin grows, the sac gradually 
diminishes, until it is quite absorbed. At this stage the 
fish is perfectly formed, the continuous back fin, having 
divided into the dorsal, adipose, and caudal fins, and the 
body has become developed in proportion to the head, into 
a perfectly-formed and shapely fish. 
When the umbilical sac is absorbed, the young salmon 
is called a parr, and already the transverse bars may be 
seen on the sides of the fish, which continue to distinguish 
the parr, until it reaches the smolt stage. These bars are 
common to most, if not all the varieties of trout and 
salmon, which are very similar in appearance at this early 
stage, and they are then most difficult to distinguish from 
each other. The migratory species however, have a larger 
number of bars than the non-migratory. 
Although the alevins do not require much, or any food, 
until the umbilical sac is absorbed, it is wise to begin to 
offer them some a little before that stage is reached by 
the earliest hatched amongst them. Otherwise, should 
