50 SCIENCE SKETCHES, 



Frazer River, the silver salmon in Puget Sound, 

 the quinnat in the Columbia and the Sacramento, 

 and the silver salmon in most of the streams along 

 the coast. All the species have been seen by us 

 in the Columbia and in Frazer River; all but the 

 blue-back in the Sacramento and in waters tribu- 

 tary to Puget Sound. Only the quinnat has been 

 noticed south of San Francisco. Its range has 

 been traced as far as Ventura River. Of these 

 species, the quinnat and blue-back salmon habitu- 

 ally "run" in the spring; the others in the fall. 

 The usual order of running in the rivers is as fol- 

 lows : nerka^ tscJiazvytscha, kisiitch, gorbuscha, keta. 



The economic value of the spring-running sal- 

 mon is far greater than that of the other species, 

 because they can be captured in numbers when at 

 their best, while the others are usually taken only 

 after deterioration. To this fact the worthlessness 

 of OncorhyncJms keta as compared with the other 

 species is probably wholly due. 



The habits of the salmon in the ocean are not 

 easily studied. Quinnat and silver salmon of all 

 sizes are taken with the seine at almost any season 

 in Puget Sound. This would indicate that these 

 species do not go far from the shore. The quinnat 

 takes the hook freely in Monterey Bay, both near 

 the shore and at a distance of six to eight miles out. 

 We have reason to believe that these two species 

 do not necessarily seek great depths, but proba- 

 bly remain not very far from the mouth of the 

 rivers in which they were spawned. The blue-back 

 and the dog salmon probably seek deeper water, 

 as the former is seldom or never taken with the 



