32 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



hollowed out into great wallows, from which, as I ap- 

 proached, crowds of salmon would dart ; and I could 

 see that the bottom was thickly covered with eggs, and 

 feasting on them were numbers of immense salmon trout. 



I saw frequently the act of spawning ; and I saw once, 

 a greedy trout rush at a female salmon, seize the exud- 

 ing ova, and tear it away, and I thought that perhaps 

 in some such rushes, lay the explanation of the wounds 

 which so frequently are found on the female salmon's 

 belly after spawning. 



At first, I thought there were two species of salmon 

 in the creek ; one unmistakably the hideous garbosha, 

 the other a dark straight-backed fish ; but upon exam- 

 ining quite a number of each variety which I had picked 

 up, I found that all the hump-backed fish were males, 

 and the others all females ; that is, all that I examined ; 

 but as they were all spent fish, I could not be sure. I 

 therefore shot quite a number of livelier ones, and found 

 confirmation. 



I saw one female that was just finishing spawning. 

 She lay quiet, as though faint, for a couple of minutes, 

 then began to topple slowly over on to her side, recovered 

 herself, and then, as though suddenly startled from a 

 deep sleep, darted forward, and thrust herself half of 

 her length out of the water, upon a gravel bar, and con- 

 tinued to work her way until she was completely out of 

 water, and there I left her to die. 



A very large proportion of the fish were more or less 

 bruised and discolored ; and upon nearly all there ex- 



