SALMON DYING AFTER SPAWNING. 19 
and is ready afew months afterwards, unless it falls a 
prey to the seals and porpoises, or to the snares of man, 
to go through exactly the same experiences, with the same 
object in view, viz., the perpetuation of its species. But 
it often happens that the emaciated and exhausted “kelt ” 
is unable to reach the sea. Worn out by the fatigues of 
the journey, and the exhaustion consequent on their pro- 
digious efforts to perpetuate their species, large numbers of 
them perish miserably every year in the river, a prey to 
starvation and disease. The longer the river, and the farther 
the spawning places from the sea, the greater the probability 
of the fish being unable to withstand the fatigues of the 
return journey: and, although death after this fashion may 
be said to be equivalent in many cases to merely the mortal 
decay from sheer old age, which all fish, as well as flesh, is 
heir to—if disease or accident do not first do their work— 
yet a large proportion of fish so dying would undoubtedly 
survive if they could only reach the sea in time. 
In the long and rapid rivers of the Pacific coast of North 
America, the Fraser and the Sacramento, and more par- 
ticularly the Columbia, the quantities of spawned fish that die 
in their downward migration, and lie rotting on the banks 
or are carried in thick masses down stream, are so great 
as to give rise to the belief that the salmon in these rivers, 
or at any rate one particular variety of them, invariably 
die after spawning. This theory is firmly held by authorities 
competent to judge of its correctness. Among others Mr. 
A. C. Anderson, Inspector of Fisheries in British Columbia, 
has reiterated his belief in the truth of this assertion. He 
says most emphatically that the salmon of the Fraser, 
unlike their Atlantic congeners, “do not return to the sea 
after spawning: they perish after that natural function is 
performed.” 
