SALMON. 43 



stream. It was a strange and novel sight to 

 see three moving lines of fish the dead and 

 dying in the eddies and slack- water along the 

 banks, the living, breasting the current in the 

 centre, blindly pressing on to perish like their 

 kindred. 



Even in streams where a successful deposition 

 of the ova has been accomplished, there never 

 appears, as far as my observations have gone, any 

 disposition in the parent-fish to return to the sea. 

 Their instinct still prompts them to keep swim- 

 ming up-stream, until you often find them with 

 their noses worn quite off, their heads bruised 

 and battered, fins and tail ragged and torn, 

 bodies emaciated, thin, and flabby; the bright 

 silvery tints dull and leaden in hue, a livid red 

 streak extending along each side from head to 

 tail, in which large ulcerous sores have eaten 

 into the very vitals. 



The Indians say all the salmon that come up 

 to spawn die ; but if all do not die, I have no 

 hesitation in saying that very few spring-salmon 

 ever reach the saltwater after ascending the 

 rivers to spawn. Why there should be this 

 marvellous waste of salmon in the rivers of the 

 North-west I am somewhat puzzled to imagine. 

 The distance the fish have to travel from the sea 



