44 FISH HAKVESTING. 



up-stream, or the obstacles they may have to 

 overcome, have clearly nothing to do with their 

 dying. In the Chilukweyuk river the distance 

 from the sea is not over 200 miles, and that 

 clear from any kind of hindrance ; and yet they 

 die in thousands. In the Columbia they ascend 

 a thousand miles to the Kettle Falls, and they 

 have been caught many hundred miles above 

 that; still they die just the same as in the 

 shorter streams. Up the Snake river they push 

 their way to the great Shoshonee Falls, over a 

 thousand miles against a rocky stream, but perish 

 there just as they do in the Sumass and Chiluk- 

 weyuk rivers, which are close to the sea. 



Unlike the salmon in our own streams, the 

 spring-salmon in North-western waters spawn in 

 midsummer, when the water is at its lowest tem- 

 perature and greatest flood-height, from the melt- 

 ing snow. As there is no impediment or hindrance 

 to prevent them returning to the sea, why do they 

 die in N.W. waters ? In my opinion, from sheer 

 starvation. Careful observations, made at various 

 Indian fishing-stations and extending over a long 

 space of time, have quite convinced me that 

 salmon (I more particularly allude to the spring- 

 fish) never feed after leaving saltwater. My 

 reasons for thus thinking are, first, no salmon 



