FISHES. 157 



leads them to return to spawn in the same spawning grounds where they were 

 originally hatched. We fail to find any evidence of this in the ease of the Pacific 

 coast salmon, and we do not believe it to be true. It seems moi-e jirobable that the 

 young salmon, hatched in any river, mostly remain in the ocean within a radius of 

 twenty, thirty, or forty miles of its mouth. These, in their movements about in the 

 ocean, may come into contact witli the cold waters of their parent rivers, or, j)erhaps, of 

 any other river, at a considerable distance from the shore. In the case of the quinnat 

 and the blue-back, their ' instinct ' leads them to ascend these fresh waters, and in a 

 majority of cases these waters will be those in whicli the fishes in question were origi- 

 nally spawned. Later in the season the growth of the reproductive organs leads them 

 to a]ij)roach the shore and search for fresh waters, and still the chances are that they 

 may find the original stream. But undoubtedly many fall salmon ascend, or try to 

 ascend, streams in whicli no salmon was ever hatched. In little brooks about Puget 

 Sound, where the water is not three inches deep, dead or dying salmon are often found, 

 which have entered them for the purpose of sjjawning. 



It is said of the Russian River and other California rivers, that their mouths, in 

 the time of low water in summer, generally become entirely closed by sand-bars, and 

 that the salmon, in their eagerness to ascend them, frequently fling themselves entirely 

 out of water on the beach. But this does not prove that the salmon are guided by a 

 marvellous geographical instinct which leads them to their ])arent river. The waters 

 of Russian River soak through these sand-bars, and the salmon ' instinct,' we think, 

 leads them merely to search for fresh waters. 



This matter is much in need of further investigation ; at ])rescnt, however, we find 

 no reason to believe that the salmon enter the Rogue River simply because they were 

 spawned there, or that a salmon hatched in the Clackamas River is any nioi-e likely, on 

 that account, to return to the Clackamas than to go uj) the Cowlitz or the Des Cluites. 



" At the hatchery on Rogue River, the fish are stripped, marked, and set free, and 

 every year since the hatchery has been in o])eration some of the marked fish have been 

 re-caught. The young fry are also marked, but none of them have been re-caught." 



In regard to the diminution of the number of salmon on the coast : In Puget 

 Sound, Frazer River, and the smaller streams, there ajjpears to be little or no evi- 

 dence of this. In the Columbia River the evidence appears somewhat conflicting. 

 The catch in 1880 was considerably greater than ever before (nearly 540,000 cases 

 of 48 j)ounds each having been packed), although the fishing for three or four years 

 has been very extensive. On the other hand, the high water of that year undoubt- 

 edly caused many fish to become spring salmon which would otherwise have run 

 in the fall. Moreover, it is urged that a few years ago, when the number caught 

 was about half as great as in 1880, the amount of netting used was ))erhaps one eighth 

 as much. With a comparatively small outfit the canners caught half the fish ; now, 

 with nets much larger and moi'e numerous, they catch them all, scarcely any escaping 

 during the fishing season (April 1 to August 1). Whether an actual reduction in the 

 number of fish running can be proven or not, there can be no question that the present 

 rate of destruction of the salmon will dejilete the river before many years. A consider- 

 able number of quinnat salmon run in August and September, and some stragglers even 

 later ; these now are all which keep up the supply of fish in the river. The non-molesta- 

 tion of this fall run, therefore, does something to atone for the almost total destruction 

 of the spring run. This, however, is insufiicient. A well-ordered salmon hatchery is 

 the only means by which the destruction of the salmon in the river can be prevented. 



