458 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 52 



supposed Others knew this, and also the fact that the Trout is de- 

 structive to the Salmon, but last winter I found in the 'Pacific Fish- 

 erman' statements from authorities on the question that Trout are 

 not destructive to Salmon fry, though I had been supposing all the 

 time that everybody knew the greatest enemy the Salmon had was 

 the Trout. 



"Last season we captured fourteen marked Salmon and the year 

 before two, sixteen in all, exactly one per cent of the number you 

 marked. I have in consequence to lay aside my theory that Salmon 

 take anywhere from twelve to twenty years to mature. On account 

 of the marked fish caught at Yes Bay, my other theory that hatchery 

 fish would return to the stream in which they were liberated, is like- 

 wise not substantiated. No one seems to know how many marked 

 Salmon wxre caught, but one man told me they certainly took as 

 many as twenty-five in one day; so, according to that, by far the 

 larger portion of our hatch went to Yes Bay. One peculiar thing I 

 notice about the return of marked fish is that at Yes Bay in 1906 

 they caught more than in 1907, whereas here in 1906 we captured 

 only two, as against fourteen in 1907." 



The two specimens of Blobs mentioned by Mr. Patching were a 

 Cottiis asper about 16 cm. (6^ inches) long and one about 11-12 

 cm. (4!/^ inches) long, which it had tried to swallow. The other 

 specimen, also Cottiis aspcr, had in its stomach thirty to forty eggs 

 and a young Salmon about 8.5 cm. (3^ inches) long. The Blob 

 was the same size as the larger one mentioned above. 



Late in 1908 Air. Patching sent to the U. S. National IMuseum 

 another small collection from the same locality. This included a 

 small Salamander, a Stickleback (Gastcrosfais aculcatiis), a Blenny 

 (PhoHs oriiatus), and fourteen specimens of Cottiis asper. The 

 Blobs appeared so plump and well fed that an examination of their 

 stomach contents was made. All of them showed evidence of hav- 

 ing taken food a short time before being caught and in most cases 

 this food, which consisted of young Salmon (Oncorhynchus) and 

 Salmon eggs, was hardly digested. In one case two or three young 

 Salmon in the stomach of a Blob were almost entirely digested, only 

 the head and vertebrse remaining, and in two other cases there were 

 a few scraps remaining from a previous meal. It is evident either 

 tiiat these Blobs must have gone a long time without eating or that 

 their digestive processes must be very rapid ; otherwise there would 

 have been a greater diversity of conditions in regard to the amount 

 of digestive action which had taken place. The latter supposition 

 is the more probable one, for these fish came from a river filled with 



