192 THE SALMON AND ITS MIGRATIONS 



for alarm or for the statement that our salmon 

 are decreasing. 



Iblts antr ^tonwilring jS^tn. When a salmon 

 enters a river in June he is rolling in fat; the 

 intestines are one solid mass of it. Formerly, 

 when salmon were salted, all the intestines were 

 collected, placed in a barrel and allowed to melt 

 with the heat of the sun, giving about one im- 

 perial quart of clear oil per two hundred pounds 

 of cured fish. After his long and arduous jour- 

 ney up stream, his enforced or willing fast, and 

 the exhaustion due to spawning, all this fat has 

 been absorbed and the fish left in an emaciated 

 condition. He is then called a spent fish or kelt. 

 He is hardly recognizable. His skin is dark, 

 thick and slimy, to such a degree that his former 

 bright silvery scales are invisible. How has this 

 been brought about ? By long immersion in fresh 

 water, is the answer. Very well; then how is it 

 that this same fish, continuing to remain in the 

 same water, emerges in April, with bright scales 

 showing again ? He is no fatter, still a kelt, but he 

 is bright and shining. How was this brought 

 about? Here is where I have something new! 

 He has shed his coat! He has moulted, thrown 

 off his outer slimy covering with the old scales, 

 and grown new ones, just in the same way as an 

 animal sheds his coat, birds their feathers, and 

 snakes their skins also of scales. I imagine I 

 can see my dear reader's incredulous smile when 



