272 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



wet morasses and sphagnum-covered areas, which are soaked with water and winch at times ceem to 

 contain water sufficient only to moisten the skin of the fish. In the low grounds or tundra are many. 

 countless thousands, small ponds of very slight depth, connected with each other by small streams 

 .if variable width. * * * These narrow outlets of the ponds are at certain seasons so full of these 

 fish that they completely block them up. The snl't. yielding sphagnum moss above is pushed aside, 

 and under it' these fish find a convenient retreat. Here the fish are partially protected from the great 

 cold of winter by the covering of moss and grass. In such situations they collect in such numbers that 

 fio-ures fail to express an adequate idea of their numbers. They are measured by the yard. Then- 

 mass is deep according to the nature of the retreat. * * * The natives repair to the places which 

 are known to be the refuge of these fish and set a small trap. The natives remove the trap 



everv day or two to relieve the pressure on it and to supply their own wants and those of their dogs. 

 * *" * From May to December, tons and tons of these fish are daily removed. They form the prin- 

 cipal food of the natives living between the Yukon Delta and the Kuskokwim River and as far interior 

 as the liases of the higher hills. North of the Yukon Delta they are also abundant. The natives sell 

 many of these fish in baskets, a few cents paying for about three-fourths of a bushel. When taken 

 from' tlie traps the fish are immediately put into these baskets and taken to the village, where the 

 baskets of fish are placed on stages out of the way of dogs. The mass of fish in each basket is frozen 

 in a few minutes, and when required to take them out they have to be chopped out with an ax or beaten 

 with a club to divide them into pieces of sufficient size to feed to the dogs. 



Fig. 21. — Dallia pectoralis Bean. 



The vitality of these fish is astonishing. They will remain in those grass baskets for weeks, and when 

 brought into the house and thawed out they will be as lively as ever. The pieces which are thrown to 

 the ravenous dogs are eagerly swallowed, the animal heat of the dog's stomach thaws the fish out, where- 

 upon its movements soon cause the dog to vomit it up alive. The food of these fish has always been a 

 matter of wonder to me. considering the number of fish to be supplied in the scanty waters where they 

 abound. The contents of several stomachs were examined and found to contain only a mass of undis- 

 tinguished earthy matter, vegetable fragments, and what appeared to be the undigested portions of 

 skins of small worms which frequent the ponds and low grounds. The spawning season is in June and 

 July, or as soon as the lagoons thaw out sufficiently. The eggs are deposited in the vegetable slrme at 

 the bottoms of the small ponds. 



According to Petroff, this little fish is found in all the shallower channels and lagoons throughout the 

 delta between the mouths of the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers in such quantities as to furnish subsist- 

 ence for whole settlements in the most desolate regions where nothing else could be found to sustain 

 life at certain seasons of the year. It is said that the people inhabiting these regions are in better con- 

 dition physically when spring approaches than any of their neighbors in regions where it does not exist, 

 they being almost exempt from the annual period of starvation elsewhere preceding the run of salmon 

 in the rivers. The blackfish is exceedingly fat and a good quality of oil is obtained from il. 



