268 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



babies. I have seen only one of them at work. He 

 was ten years of age, and he was as quick in his 

 movements with the spear as a cat after a mouse. 



Still further up-stream the grizzly bear and the 

 more modest black bear are waiting for the " run," 

 and it is wonderful the number which these greedy 

 animals catch and eat or reserve for later use. An 

 old and experienced trapper says a full-grown grizzly 

 will easily bury away in his caches 3,000 salmon. 



Last, but not least, we must not forget the dip net, 

 which annually claims its thousands of victims. 



When the vicissitudes of the journey up to the natal 

 spawning bed have all been surmounted, the real 

 troubles of the mother salmon are just beginning. 

 She and her mate scoop out a depression in the gravelly 

 bottom of the river or stream with their bellies and 

 fins, where the eggs may sink to the bottom of the 

 water and lay there in safety until the process of 

 hatching out is completed. Then it would seem as if 

 every living creature in that immediate locality had an 

 insatiable appetite for the eggs. 



Trout take them voraciously ; mallard ducks dabble 

 and dabble in the running water for them, and the 

 male salmon seems to be possessed of a fierce desire to 

 eat his neighbor's progeny. Worse still, in the last 

 stages of the spawning process the mate will seize the 

 female by the tail and cruelly bite and lacerate her. 

 Whether this biting is done as a counter-irritant to 



