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REMINISCENCES TICKS BIRDS 



A 



IN the fall of 1911 I made an appointment with /' /1/ 

 grizzly bear at Bear Lake, British Columbia. The 

 Pacific salmon, both Chinook and sockeye, enter the 

 Eraser River at Vancouver some time in June of each 

 year and commence their long, foodless ascent to the 

 place where they were spawned. It is a strange law 

 of nature that sends this fish back to the place of its 

 birth, to, in turn, drop its spawn, and denies it food 

 after entering fresh water denies by taking away the 

 desire for food. They go up the Fraser, branching off 

 at the different tributaries according to their nativity. 

 It is seven hundred and fifty miles from Vancouver 

 up the Fraser and up the Bear River to Bear Lake, and 

 these salmon, the Chinook at the outlet and the sockeye 

 thirty miles farther up on the inlet, reach their spawning- 

 beds from the ist to the I5th of September. The jour- 

 ney is long, the current swift, and they become weak 

 and thin; the Chinook change to a dark magenta in 

 color, and the sockeye to scarlet, and are very beautiful 

 in the water. The female drops her spawn, the male 

 fertilizes, and both protect for about two weeks, and then, 

 answering the law of their being, turn a ghostly whitish 

 color, die and drift upon the sand-bars, where carnivorous 

 birds and beasts hold revel. 



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