474 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 



care much for their own life. But Onoorr'hyncus is much more reck- 

 less. In ascending the rivers upstream the fishes of these species per- 

 form feats truly acrobatic, since they leap in the more shallow places 

 from stone to stone, wriggle on through damp grass, and in other 

 places mount the waterfalls. Most of their shoals do not return to 

 the ocean and they perish in the river soon after spawning. 



White salmon of the Arctic Ocean as a rule preserve their life 

 after spawning and descend the stream back to the ocean, though 

 quite exhausted after the exertions of their sexual life. 



According to these points of difference, the pink salmon of the 

 Pacific must be more numerous than the white salmon of the 

 North, and also much easier to catch. Their greater number 

 makes for the great annual loss of life that forms one of the neces- 

 sary links of their breeding process. After the spawning the 

 pink salmon species, for instance the dog salmon, changes so much 

 that itf is difficult to recognize it as the same kind of fish. Not 

 only does its flesh become lean and tasteless, but its whole shape 

 changes. Its jaws become crooked, forming a kind of beak, and 

 the back assumes a form of hump, like the hunch salmon. 



This fall salmon is very poor eating, even for the dogs. On the 

 other hand, dogs in the Pacific region as well as foxes, wolves, and 

 even sables and ermines, try to catch salmon directly in the water, 

 when it passes on mad with the desire of spawning. Anadyr dogs, 

 when sold to Kolyma people, in their first polar summer would 

 wade into the water, trying all the time to catch some salmon. 

 They would usually snatch some smaller piece of wood and then 

 desist. It shows very clearly the difference in the way of catching 

 pink salmon in the Pacific and white salmon in the Arctic. North- 

 ern salmon are not so abundant nor so reckless as to be caught 

 out of the water by the very first dog. 



On the other hand, on the rivers entering the Pacific thousands of 

 pink salmon, dead from exhaustion, are carried by the wind 

 directly to the river banks, where they form ultimately strata of dead 

 fish, which are covered by the early snow of October. From these 

 natural storehouses bears and foxes feed throughout the year, and 

 men take food for their dogs. 



Whole tribes and settlements on the shores of the larger rivers 

 of Siberia live exclusively by fishing. This way of living makes 

 the village and the house permanent and the people sedentary. 

 On the other hand, the culture of these tribes is primitive, and 

 psychically the people are passive. The struggle for life is not 

 very fierce. Food is always extant. It is caught in a manner more 

 or less primitive, for instance with fishing weirs, when large creels 

 of willow are choked full with the best fish, or with long nets drawn 

 across the river, which also regularly are white with fish caught 



