VIVIPAROUS FISHES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
407 
They swim close to the surface in immense shoals, and numbers are very craftily taken by 
the Indians, who literally frighten the fish into their canoes. At low tide, when a shoal of fish is in 
the bay or up one of these large inlets that intersect the coast line, the savages get the fish between 
the banks (or the rocks, as it may be) and the canoe, and then paddle with all their might and main 
among the terror-stricken fish, lashing the sea with their paddles and uttering the most fiendish 
yells. Out leap the fish from the water, in their panic to escape this (to their affrighted senses) 
terrible monster ; and if not out of the ‘ ‘ frying pan into the fire,” it is out of the sea into the canoes — 
which in the long run I take to he pretty much the same thing. 
It appears to be a singular trait in the character of viviparous fish, that of leaping high out 
of the water on the slightest alarm. I have often seen them jump into my boat when rowing through 
a shoal, which is certainly most accommodating. The Indians also spear them; they use a long, 
slender shaft with four barbed points, arranged in a circle, hut bent so as to make them stand at a 
considerable distance from each other. With this spear they strike into a shoal of fish, and generally 
impale three or four; many are caught with hooks, hut they bite shily, the only baits I have seen 
taken being salmon roe nearly putrid, or hits of crab. 
Just prior to my leaving Vancouver Island, numbers were netted by Italian fishermen who 
had a seine. They found a ready sale for them in the market, hut as a table dainty they are scarcely 
worth eating ; the flesh is insipid, watery, and flabby, and I am convinced that no system of cooking 
or culinary skill would ever convert it into a palatable fish. 
The geographical range of viviparous fish, as far as I have any opportunity of judging, is 
from the Bay of San Francisco to Sitka. It may, perhaps (and I have but little dodbt that it does), 
extend much farther south along the Mexican coast; but this I can only surmise, never having seen 
them beyond the limits above stated. It frequents all the bays and harbors on the east and west 
sides of Vancouver Island, and is equally abundant in the Gulf of Georgia and the Straits of Juan 
de Fuca ; making its appearance about the same period, or perhaps somewhat earlier, in the various 
inlets on the Oregon coast, from Cape Flattery to the Bay of San Francisco. It will be just as well, 
perhaps, before I go into the subject of its specific characters and singular reproductive organs, I 
should mention how I first stumbled upon the fact of its being viviparous. 
Soon after I arrived at Vancouver Island, I at once set to work to investigate, as far as it lay 
in my power, the habits and periods of migration of the different species of fish periodically visiting 
the Northwest coast. The sole means then at my disposal to obtain fish for examination, or as speci- 
mens to send home, was to employ Indians or catch them myself ; so it happened, some of these were 
first brought me by Indians. Cutting one down the side - (the plan I usually adopt to skin a fish, 
keeping the opposite side untouched), to my intense surprise, out tumbled a lot of little fish. My 
wildest dreams had never led me to suppose a fish I then thought was a bream, or one of the perch 
family, could be viviparous. I at ODce most hastily arrived at the conclusion that the greedy gour- 
mand had eaten them; dropping my knife, I sat in a most bewildered state looking at the fish. 
The first ray of light that shone to illumine my mystification seemed to spring from the fact 
that each little fish was the model, counterpart, and facsimile of the larger, and in shape, size, and 
color were exactly alike ; from the position, too, they occupied in the abdomen of the larger fish, I was 
led at once to see the error of my first assumption, that they had been swallowed. Carefully dissect- 
ing back the walls of the abdomen, I discovered a delicate membranous bag or sac having an attach- 
ment to the upper or dorsal region, and doubled upon itself into numerous folds or plaits, and 
between each of these folds was neatly packed away a little fish ; the hag was of bluish- white color, 
and contained fourteen fish. I had no longer any doubt that the fish was viviparous, and that it was 
a true and normal case of ovarian gestation. So much for my first discovery; the details of my sub- 
sequent examinations I shall again have occasion to refer to. * * [Here is added an account of 
Jackson’s discovery.] 
I have spoken of this at some length, because it is a curious coincidence that the same fact 
should have been discovered by two men, a long distance apart, about the same date, and by both in 
the same way — by sheer accident. 
Now we come to the ticklish question : How are the young fish vitalized in the abdomen of the 
mother t In this case I shall adopt what I conceive to he the most straightforward course, which is 
candidly to give my own thoughts, and solicit from abler, older, and better physiologists their opinions 
or theories, for I sincerely think this is a question well worth careful investigation. I believe the 
ovum, after impregnation, at first goes through the same transformations in the ovarium as it would do, 
supposing it to have been spawned and fecundated in the ordinary spawning-bed, but only up to a 
