REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XXIX 



The large King salmon, or chowichee,* and the Red salmon, hoikoh,t 

 are, according to Mr. Dall, taken as far up the Yukon River as Fort 

 Yukon, fourteen hundred miles from the sea. 



The shad of China, samlai (Alosa rtevesii, Rich.,) according to Mr. Salter, 

 extend their migrations up the Yang-tse-Idaug for over a thousand 

 miles; and, according to Dr. MacGowan, to a distance of three thou- 

 sand miles from its mouth. 



A specimen of a shad (Alosa sapidissima) was received at the National 

 Museum from Mr. R. O. Sweeney, which was taken in the Mississippi 

 River at Saint Paul, Minn. 



From these facts we may infer that the instinct of location is probably 

 sufficient to attract a colony of fishes as far inland as the headwaters of 

 the longest river, whenever their home has been once established there. 



The vigorous strength and the energy exhibited by the California 

 salmon during its migrations up the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers, 

 afford the evidence that its capacity for a long migration from the sea to 

 its spawning-grounds, is unsurpassed by any species of fish known. 



Wherever the California salmon, in the process of artificial propaga- 

 tion, has come under the hands of the fish-culturist, it is acknowledged, 

 as previously mentioned, to exceed all other species, which are propa- 

 gated, in hardiness, in tenacity of life, and in freedom from tendency 

 to disease. Although it will not compare with the catfishes (SiluridcB) 

 or the eels (Anguillidw,) or even the suckers (Catastomidw,) in retaiu- 

 iug life out of water, yet, unlike these, it does not owe its tenacity of life 

 to a low, sluggish action of the vital forces, that retain life when the 

 respiration has become almost entirely impeded, but rather to the posses- 

 sion of an excess of vitality, and which exhibits itself in all stages from 

 the egg to the mature fish. Mr. Charles Nordkoff, in an article on The 

 Columbia River and Puget Sound, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine,^ 

 in describing the processes at the canneries, says : " A salmon 

 bleeds like a bull." Professor Agassiz thought he found evidence in 

 the structure of the salmon family that indicated " the highest rank 

 in the class of fishes,"§ and refers with enthusiasm "to their admirable 

 structure" and great vigor.|| In addition, we have the testimony of 

 Seth Green and other fish-culturists, that the eggs and young fishes are 

 hardy and enduring, the latter great feeders and very rapid growers. 

 In the ponds of different fish-culturists in the country, it is com- 

 mou to see a school of several thousand California salmon a year 

 old or more, which are said to have suffered no loss whatever in 



* Oncorhynchus orientalis, Pall. (English) King salmon; (Russian) Chowicheo; Na- 

 tive K'hab. Alaska and its Resources. By William H. Dall, director of the scientific 

 corps of the late Western Union Telegraph Expedition. Boston : Lee & Shepard, 

 1870, p. 579. 



t Oncorhynchus protens, Pall, f English) salmon ; (Russian) hoikoh. Op. cit. 



t No. 285, February, 1874, p. 341. 



§ Lake Superior. Boston : 1850, p. 25. 



U Op. cit., pp. 327, 328. 



