One morning some fishermen saw a shark, and no one dared to go in bathing for a few days. This great, savage, "man-eater" shark does not often come north of the Gulf of California. Sometimes small ones are caught with a hook and line off Catalina Island, and Tom was always glad to see such sea-tigers destroyed.
Of course the children did not want to go home, till at last Mrs. Ransom explained to them that in the ocean and bay near San Francisco there were odd fish and strange animals too. And so it turned out, for in a day's fishing over at Sausalito Tom caught many silver smelt and tomcod, with flat, ugly flounders, and a red, big-eyed rock-cod. The frightened boy almost fell out of the boat, too, when he pulled in a large sting-ray, or "stingaree," as the boatman called it. This queer three-sided fish, with a sharp, bony sting in its back, flopped round till the man cut the hook out, knocked its head till it was no longer able to bite, and threw it overboard. These rays have to be fenced out of the oyster-beds along the bay, since they have big mouths full of such strong teeth that they crush an oyster, shell and all, and destroy every one they can reach.
Oysters are grown in great quantities in the oyster-beds along the bay shore. The largest size, which are called "transplanted," are brought from the East as very small or baby oysters and dropped into shallow water, where they cling to rocks or brush-piles till grown.
Tom also caught a perch, and clinging to it as he drew in his line was a large, hard-shelled, long-clawed crab. Tom put the crab in the basket, knowing well what delicious white meat was in the fellow's legs and back.
Clams that burrow deep in the mud and may be found at low tide, by digging where their tell-tale bubble of air arises, and the odd shrimps, so good to eat, the children already knew about. Chinese fishermen catch shrimps in nets, dry them on the hillsides, and send both dry meat and shells to China. They dry the meat of the abalone also, and use the beautiful shells, which you have no doubt seen, for carving into curios, or making into jewellery.
A salt-water creature very destructive to shipping and the wharves is the teredo, or ship-worm. This brown inch-long worm lives in wood that is always under water, such as the bottoms of ships and the round piles you see at the wharves. He hollows or bores out winding tunnels in the wood with the sharp edge of his shell until the piles crumble to pieces. This small animal would finally destroy the largest wooden ship if sheets of copper were not put on the sides and keel to protect it.
| TROUT FROM LAKE TAHOE.
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When Retta saw Tom's basket of fish she said, "Well, I think the fresh-water fishes much prettier. I am sure the rainbow and Dolly Varden trout with their bright-colored spots, which we saw up in the Truckee River and the mountain lakes last summer, were better to look at and to eat than these sea monsters." Tom laughed and said, "Oh, that was because you helped to catch some of those. Do you remember the big black-spotted trout we saw in Lake Tahoe? And the little speckled fellows we caught in that clear creek in the redwoods, and how we wrapped them in wet paper and cooked them at our camp-fire? I wish we could go up to the McCloud River, though, and see the baby trout in the fish hatchery there."
So their mother told them that the tiny trout eggs were kept in troughs with clear, cold water running over them till they hatched out. Then the little things, not half as long as a pin, were placed in large tin cans and sent to stock brooks and lakes, and in a year or so they grew big enough to catch.
The most valuable of our food-fishes is the salmon, a large silvery-sided salt-water fish that takes fresh-water journeys too. For they swim up the rivers every year to lay their eggs in the clear, cold streams, knowing, perhaps, that the salmon-fry, as the young are called, will have fewer enemies away from the ocean. The salmon go over a hundred miles up to the McCloud River to spawn, and will jump or leap up small falls or rapids in their way. Indians spear many of them, but a number go back to the ocean again. Thousands and thousands of ocean salmon are caught along the northern coast and taken to the canneries. There the fish are put into cans and cooked, and when sealed up are sent all over the world. California salmon is eaten from Iceland to India, and its preparation and sale give employment to many people.