478 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



canned. Next to the Quinnat, it is the most valuable of the different species, and its inferiority is 

 mainly that of size. At the canneries four Blue-backs are taken as one Quinnat. A very few of 

 the Columbia River canneries refuse this species, in order to be able to say that they can the Chin- 

 nook Salmon only. 



BENDIRE ON THE RED-FISH. This is the Red-fish of Idaho, the identity of which was first 

 determined by Capt. Charles Bendire, United States Army, whose field-notes upon its appearance 

 and habits, published in the Proceedings of the National Museum, 1 are here reproduced: 



"The females are much more uniformly colored. The head is considerably tinged with steel 

 blue, and the red tint on the sides is more or less clouded with blue and bronze. Females after 

 spawning show considerable amount of red, only after spawning I noticed that the red coloring 

 matter deposited in the skin appears to be drawn from the flesh, and I find that in proportion to 

 the bright coloring of the skin of the fish the tiesh loses this tint. In some instances it is barely 

 pink-colored or almost white. After the spawning of these fish they are brightest outside and 

 palest inside (as far as the flesh is concerned). The average size of a number of males by actual 

 weight is only five pounds, and of females only three and three-quarters pounds. After death, 

 within half an hour the color of these fish rapidly changes about the head and becomes a dark 

 olive green with bluish reflections, in some instances almost bluish-black. Among any number of 

 fish there is almost an endless variation in color, caused, perhaps, by some remaining a longer 

 time in the lake than others. Wallowa Lake is about four and oi.e-quarter miles in length by one 

 and a half to two miles wide. It deepens very rapidly out a few feet from the shore, and is said 

 to be four hundred feet deep, and more than that in places. Two small streams flow into the 

 lake, and these form the spawning ground proper for these fish ; and as there are falls about two 

 miles above the mouth of these streams over which the fish cannot leap, they are restricted to 

 rather limited quarters for spawning. The only place I saw any of these fish was on the bar near 

 the head of the lake, and there most of them are caught. They can be seen in schools of one 

 hundred or more at almost any time during the mouth of August and later. This year the run 

 has been very light, and fishing had to a great extent stopped when 1 arrived at the lake on the 

 last day of August. Four fisheries had been in operation, and these had put up about twenty 

 thousand pounds of fish. I believe two or three years ago it had been the practice to obstruct 

 the entrances to the small streams at the head of the lake to prevent the fish from running up 

 these streams. This year this was not done, and a number of the settlers about the lake seem to 

 be anxious to have the fish properly protected, and it is not at all too soon to do it, either. The 

 placing of obstructions in the above-mentioned streams, and perhaps this year of gill-nets on the 

 bar, has no doubt something to do with the scarcity of these fish. But the most abominable 

 things of all which I saw personally in use are several clusters of hooks tied together, so that they 

 form a circle with a radius of about three inches. Just above these hooks a lump of Red-fish eggs 

 is laid. These are covered with mosquito-netting, and by this contrivance thousands of young 

 Red-fish (the settlers call them "Shiners," others call them "Trout," but I am satisfied that it will 

 be found that they are yearling Red-fish)- are caught and salted as well as the full-grown ones. 

 Now, these fish are only about four inches long, and for every one caught two are crippled and 

 die. So it can readily be seen that an immense number are destroyed yearly, as some parties 

 make it a business to salt these down as well as mature fish.. 



"I examined all these modes of fishing, and when I hooked with a single hook about one out 

 of three in some other part of the body than the head, it can readily be understood how murderous 



1 Vol. iv, pp. 83-84. - No doubt of it. D. S. J. 



