At San Francisco, as early as April, I saw large numbers of viviparous fish in the market for sale; but then, it is an open question whether these fish really arrive at an earlier period of the year in the Bay of San Francisco than at Vancouver Island. I think not. That they are taken earlier in the year is simply due to the fact, that the fishermen at San Francisco have better nets and fish in deeper water, than the Indians, and consequently take the fish earlier. The habit of the fish is clearly to come into shallow water when the period arrives for producing its live young; and from the fact that some of these fish are occasionally taken at all periods of the year, I am induced to believe that they do not in reality migrate, but only retire into deeper water along the coast, there to remain during the winter months, reappearing in the shallow bays and estuaries in June and July, or perhaps earlier, for reproductive purposes; here they remain until September, and then entirely disappear. [Illustration: THE VIVIPAROUS-FISH AND ITS YOUNG.] 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 those large inlets that intersect the coast-line, the savages get the fish between the bank (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 fryingpan into the fire,’ it is out of the sea into the canoes—which in the long run I take to be 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 haft with four barbed points, arranged in a circle, but 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, but they bite shily, the only baits I have seen taken being salmon-roe nearly putrid, or bits of crab. Just prior to my leaving Vancouver Island, numbers were netted by some Italian fishermen who had a seine. They found a ready sale for them in the market, but 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.