FISHERIES OP WASHINGTON AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. 277 



as ill 1885 and 1886 they could scarcely secure any fish there, while in 

 1889 they caught them numerously. This explanation of the increase 

 is scarcely tenable, as the number of fry set free in 1886 was not above 

 1,000,000 — less, had they all survived, than one-third the total Fraser 

 Eiver catch of 1887. Mr. Mowat, moreover, attributed the good catch of 

 1887, which ranked as an off year, to the same cause, but this would have 

 allowed for only three years' growth from the time the tirst eggs were 

 taken (not hatched), and the total number of those eggs was only 250,000. 

 It is to the last few years that we must look for the most positive 

 evidences of the success or failure of hatching oj)erations, following 

 the steady planting for a decade and over, and while the quantity of 

 fry deposited in the Fraser has not much exceeded 6,000,000 annually 

 at the most, being generally less, with a high percentage of sur;*^ival 

 it is possible that an impression has been made. Not only were the 

 conditions improved in the poor years of 1895 and 1896 by some cause, 

 if not by this one, but the effects were also felt in the years of greater 

 anticipation which immediately preceded and followed them, though 

 the greatly reduced catch of 1898, which should have been a good year, 

 is to be noted in this connection. The present inspector of fisheries 

 accredits these results to the combined influence of the hatchery and 

 of better protection in the upper waters, where the Indian methods of 

 barring the passage of spawning fish have been suppressed wherever 

 possible. He also claims the recent establishment in Morris Creek, 

 where the hatchery supplies have been obtained and where much of the 

 fry has been deposited, of a type of sockeye which spawns later than any 

 of the runs observed during the earlier operations in that locality, and 

 these he supposes to be the i)roduct of artificial propagation. These 

 late spawners are in great abundance every year, even when there is a 

 scarcity at other breeding- grounds. The observations of Mr. McNab 

 in regard to this matter are of much interest, and if the facts are sub- 

 stantially as he states them it raises again the old question as to 

 whether salmon always return to precisely the same ground where they 

 were hatched and make their run at the same relative time of the 

 season as the parent stock from which they were derived. There are 

 no data at hand for reaching a conclusion in this matter, with respect 

 especially to such a complicated system as is presented by the Fraser 

 River, but should the proposition so often raised be the true one, then 

 the hatching work on this river would be productive only of late- 

 running fish, those from which the eggs have been taken. These late 

 runs probably occur, in part at least, after the close season has begun? 

 and are of little or no benefit to the fishermen, but until the subject is 

 better understood we are perfectly justified in giving the experiment 

 the benefit of the doubt, and in regarding with favor the work 

 accomplished. 



MORTALITY AFTER SPAWNING. 



During our inquiries of 1895 no new positive information was 

 obtained regarding the extent to which the sockeye return to the 

 ocean after accomplishing the object of their journey into the fresh 



