99 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
When salmon are stripped by man, the eggs fertilized and retained 
in hatcheries until the young are born, and then planted as soon as 
the yolk sac has been absorbed, it is manifest that the only saving 
over the natural method is in reducing the loss in the egg stage. 
We know that many eggs, after being deposited naturally on the 
spawning beds, are devoured by other fishes, while sudden freshets 
and occasional droughts also claim their toll of eggs. It is highly 
robable, although we have no positive data on this point, that these 
tosses far exceed those experienced in artificial salmon culture, and 
whatever this difference is it represents the extent to which salmon 
hatcheries should be credited as preservers of the industry. 
In the opinion of the author, the best way in which to conserve the 
fisheries of the coast is by enacting and enforcing laws under which 
a certain proportion of the runs will be enabled to reach the spawning 
beds and perform the final and most important function of their 
lives unmolested. If this is done, there can be no question of the 
perpetuation of the industry, and if it is then supplemented by the 
work of hatcheries, which would reduce the loss in the egg stage, 
assurance on this point would be made doubly sure. 
If unrestricted fishing is to prevail, however, with a dependence 
upon hatcheries alone to repair the ravages of man, the industry will 
suffer seriously, for, from the very nature of things, less and less fish 
will annually escape through the fishing zone, resulting in a continu- 
ally lessening quantity of eggs being obtained at the hatcheries, and 
finally the latter will have to close down from sheer lack of material 
upon which to work. 
Should eggs be brought to the hatchery from other streams, it 
would merely be ‘‘robbing Peter to pay Paul,” and in the end the 
same result would follow in those streams. 
Fortunately these matters are becoming increasingly plain to the 
people of the various States, provinces, and territories concerned, 
and, while a few selfish persons in each are seeking solely their own 
enrichment py any means possiple, the greater number of those 
interested in fishing operations want to see the industry perpetuated 
and are willing to do almost anything that will work to this end. 
The rapid increase, during recent years, of salmon trolling and purse 
seining on the feeding banks off the mouth of the Columbia River and 
outside the Strait of Juan de Fuca and elsewhere on the coast has 
resulted in the taking of large quantities of small and immature 
salmon, and alarm is now felt lest the runs of chinooks and cohos be 
seriously depleted. Several thousands of large and small boats are 
being operated on these grounds from five to eight months of the year, 
and while, when prices were comparatively low, but few of these 
immature fish were marketed, the high prices which have prevailed 
during the last four years have caused such an intensity of fishing that 
many thousands are now caught each season. 
Investigations ? by experts off the mouth of the Columbia in 1918 
show that a large proportion of the chinook salmon caught by trolling 
are 2 and 3 years old. These are generally sold to the canners, who 
separate them into two groups, those under 5 pounds and those over. 
Those under 5 pounds are called ‘“‘eraylings”’ by the fishermen, but a 
mere glance at them is sufficient to establish their real identity. The 
a The Taking of Immature Salmon in the Waters of the State of Washington. By E Victor Smith 
State of Washington, Dept. of Fisheries. 44 pp., 8 pls. 1920. 
