HOW THE SALMON IS VANISHING 269 



help the female in her struggle to eject the roe or from 

 bad temper, no one can tell. 



As the days come and go the poor salmon become 

 weaker and weaker. They eat no food from the time 

 they leave the ocean and live solely upon the absorp- 

 tion of their own flesh. No matter how many salmon 

 have been dissected during a season, none have ever 

 been found with any food in their stomachs. 



Many of them die of exhaustion before they even 

 reach the spawning bed. During the process of spawn- 

 ing the fish are not fit for food, and yet the Indians 

 along every river where the salmon spawn spear and 

 smoke them for winter food. 



We reached Bear Lake on the third of September, 

 and the following morning we had our first sight of the 

 splendidly colored sock-eyes. Then they were brilliant 

 of hue beyond compare. Few of them were scarred by 

 battle or the labor of working up the stream, although 

 the spring salmon, that had arrived somewhat earlier, 

 were even then showing signs of wear and tear. 



By the twenty-fifth of the same month, the majority 

 of the sock-eyes were already dead. Where we for- 

 merly had seen a hundred, we now saw five and six. 

 One morning, from a high bank at the upper part of 

 the river, where we had seen thousands upon our first 

 visit three weeks before, we could count no more than 

 thirty-nine fish, and of these only two were females. 



On the far side of the river from where we stood 



