The Salmon of the Pacific Slope. 2 1 1 



characterised by an extraordinarily heavy run, the year following is 

 fairly good, the third year is bad, and the next very bad. This does 

 not hold good for the neighbouring rivers, some of which have never 

 failed. 



In favourable years the number of schools of ascending fish, and the 

 mass of individuals composing them, baffle calculation ; eye witnesses say 

 that, when the schools arrive at the narrower or shallower parts of the rivers, 

 the fish actually push each other out of the water ; or that a stone thrown 

 into the midst of a school could not sink to the bottom without touching 

 several fish. In such localities the native population reaps a rich, and to 

 them a most important, harvest, as these roughly cured fish are their only 

 means of subsistence during the winter, when other sources of food have 

 failed or are exhausted. 



The spawning time varies within the same river system from July to 

 December. The earliest arrivals in the river are said to ascend to the 

 greatest distance from the sea. After the deposition of the spawn is 

 finished, the quinnats are completely exhausted. Total abstention from 

 food for several months, combined with the exertions of the journey and 

 the spawning operation, besides wounds and bruises received by contact 

 with rocks during the passage of rapids, have reduced the fish to a condition 

 from which they are unable to recover. Their body is lank and emaciated, 

 their skin mottled with red patches and covered with a thick slime, under 

 which fester sores with fungoid growths. Even the instinct of returning to 

 the sea is lost ; some of the fish linger for some weeks near the spawning 

 beds, soon to join the majority which helplessly float down the river. All 

 are said to perish long before reaching the sea, and this is certainly the 

 fact as regards those which are beyond 150 or 200 miles from the coast. 

 However, some must succeed in regaining salt water, as it is highly 

 improbable that fish of 2olb., 30!!)., or 5olb. do not spawn oftener than 

 once in their lifetime. Probably the majority of the fish of the autumn 

 run, and such as have spawned in the lower tributaries, within a moderate 

 distance from the sea, are the fortunate survivors. 



The early life of the quinnat does not differ from that of the salmon in 

 any essential point. But when the young fish has once succeeded in 

 reaching the sea, and commenced to feed on the marine creatures with 

 which those waters teem, its growth must be more rapid than that of the 

 young salmon. I infer this from the comparatively soft character of the 

 bones of the adult fish, which can easily be cut through with the knife ; a 

 character much more conspicuous in quickly than in slowly growing 

 salmonoids. In the stomach of quinnats caught at sea animals have 



P 2 



