G2 FISH HARVESTING. 



CHAPTER III. 



FISH HARVESTING. 



THE systems adopted by the Indians for captur- 

 ing salmon vary in accordance with the localities 

 chosen for fishing. Besides the stages or baskets 

 in use on the Columbia river, they construct weirs 

 reaching from one side of a stream to the other, 

 with skilfully-contrived openings, allowing fish 

 to pass easily through them into large lateral 

 stores made of closely-woven wicker, where they 

 are kept prisoners until required. 



They have rather a clever contrivance for 

 catching salmon in the bays and harbours, 

 using a sort of gill-net (a net about forty feet 

 long and eight feet wide), with large meshes ; 

 the upper edge is buoyed by bits of dry cedar- 

 wood, that act as floats, and the net kept tight 

 by small pebbles slung at four-foot distances 

 along the lower margin. This kind of net the 

 Indians stretch across the mouth of a small bay 

 or inlet, and sit in their canoes a short distance 



