2oo Sport and Life. 



qualifications for the duties imposed by his office. He gets the 

 post because he is a "deserving" Conservative or Liberal, a 

 "good" Democrat or a "worthy" Republican. 



There are, if we give it a thought, surely few provisions of 

 Nature more mysteriously wonderful than the circumstances 

 surrounding the salmon run. Common to Europe, Asia, and North 

 America, wherever the widely spread salmon family exists, the 

 North-West Coast of America is decidedly the region where it 

 can be studied to best advantage, where the wonderful phenomena 

 springing from an animal's instinct impress themselves most on 

 our mind. 



Let us follow for a moment the fortunes of a lordly tyhee or 

 king salmon, denizen of the Pacific, a realm as vast in area as it 



o J 



is profound in depth. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles out 

 at sea, he has roamed in his home element during the four years 

 that have elapsed since the little orange-coloured egg, one of the 

 3000 or 4000 carefully deposited by his parent in the sand of some 

 nameless stream heading in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, gave 

 him to the world. Now the all important moment of his life is 

 approaching, the instinct of his race is full upon him, and with 

 millions and tens of millions of his kindred he is making for the 

 great mountain range that rises abruptly from the black depths of 

 the ocean's bottom. Possibly, nay probably, he is the only 

 surviving offspring from a batch of carefully deposited ova to 

 which he owed his existence, for from the very first moment the 

 enemies of his race have been numerous and proportioned in size 

 to his own growth at the various stages of his existence. 



Whether his instinct is so perfect a guide as to lead him 

 unerringly to the scene of his own birth is a question that has 

 puzzled many, but which remains unsolved. What evidence has 

 been collected by means of marked fish from hatcheries would, it is 

 said, almost prove that such is the case, while the fact that the 

 several larger rivers are frequented by fish distinguished by some 

 peculiar quality or other, certainly goes a long way towards 

 demonstrating the probability of such being the case. 



