FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1907. 29 
from natural causes. Mr. Chamberlain® found but one case among 
many thousands of redfish examined prior to 1906. During the sum- 
mer of 1907 an examination of 2,672 redfish from southeast Alaska, 
most of them taken south of Ketchikan, revealed none lacking either 
ventral fin. Of 5,950 humpback salmon from the same general region, 
one left ventral was entirely lacking, but in no case was the pair 
absent. The ventral fins are, moreover, seldom mutilated. The 
most frequent abnormality is asymmetry of size in the pair, one fin 
being dwarfed, but otherwise usually perfect. This examination will 
be continued until data are obtained upon a large number of salmon. 
Considering only the marked salmon coming back to the Naha, the 
return is nearly 1 per cent on fry liberated at the age of about 3 
months. Most of these returned in 1907, and indicate 44 years as the 
approximate age of the redfish from the time of hatching to sexual 
maturity. That all individuals of a given hatching do not mature in 
the same year is not improbable, and is indicated by the return of the 
Naha marked fish at Yes Lake in 1906. The same evidence also indi- 
cates that while a part of a given hatch of salmon may return to the 
parent stream a greater part may go to other streams of the region. 
Experiments at Klawak.—Mr. H. F. Swift, superintendent of the 
Klawak cannery, reports three experiments in marking salmon at the 
Klawak hatchery. <A period of one or two years intervened between 
the markings. The mark consisted in the removal of the adipose fin 
from redfish fingerlings taken from Klawak Lake, at a presumed age 
of about 14 years. In the first experiment about 1,000 fish were 
marked,in the other two about 2,000 each. A return of about 20 per 
cent is claimed in each of the first two cases, and about 5 per cent in 
the third, the return in every case occurring the third year after 
the marking. The fingerlings marked must have been in part, pre- 
sumably much the smaller part, the product of natural spawning. 
HATCHERY REBATES. 
The August grand jury of the third judicial district, sitting at 
Valdez, in its final report strongly urged that the provision of the 
Alaska fisheries law exempting owners of private salmon hatcheries 
“from all license fees and taxation of every nature at the rate of 10 
-cases of canned salmon to every 1,000 red or king salmon fry lhb- 
erated,” be repealed and that the canneries be compelled to pay the 
regular license tax of 4 cents per case of canned salmon, without 
rebate, as heretofore. While there is no doubt that the fund for 
the building of roads, etc., in Alaska has suffered somewhat from the 
exemptions granted by the new law, another side of the question 
deserves consideration. At the present time there are four hatcheries 
@See ‘‘Some Observations on Salmon and Trout in Alaska.’’ F. M. Chamberlain, 
Bureau of Fisheries, Document No. 627, p. 66-68. 
