^ 



The Mountain Goal, a typical animal of the British Columbian niuti 

 Swiss Chamois. It prefers the uppermost slopes and is a great jumper. 



of tin 



grasp objects by suction at will and by which the animal crawls 

 about. It is with these that starfishes open shellfish. They first 

 envelop them, attaching as many tube-feet as possible, and then 

 exert a steady pull. Bivalve shells can withstand a sudden jerk, 

 but they finally give up against persistent pulling; the starfish 

 then extrudes its stomach into the shell and ingests the flesh. 

 Some starfish can swim, but most of them crawl about slowly 

 on the bottom, speedier examples making about one yard an 

 hour. The number of arms may be four, five, six, eight, eleven, 

 fifteen, nineteen to twenty-five, or even forty-four. 



SOCKEYES AND CHUMS 



This coast is one of the richest in fish life to be found anywhere 

 in the world, and the variety is enormous. The most outstanding 

 are the salmon. There are five distinct species of salmon (genus 

 Oncorhynchus) in this area, all with most peculiar names both 

 "English" and scientific, to wit: the Sockeye (O.nerka), the Pink 

 (O.gorbuscha), the Coho (O.kisutch), the Chum (O.keta). and the 

 Spring or Chinook (O.tsdtawytscha). The reason for these very 



un-Latin-sounding "Latin" names is that these fish were first 

 studied and described by Russian scientists on the Asiatic coast 

 of the North Pacific. From a commercial point of view the 

 Sockeye is the most valuable in this province, whereas farther 

 south, about the Columbia River, the Chinook is the most im- 

 portant. The species vary in size and habits, and although all 

 make seasonal migrations to fresh water to breed, they do so at 

 different times. These fish change colors throughout the year, 

 the outstanding example being the Sockeye, which, just before 

 spawning time, turns bright red except for its silvery head. As 

 the shape of all them is somewhat similar, it takes first-hand 

 experience to identify any one fish at any one time. 



The life story of a salmon, although so often told, still 

 remains somewhat of a miracle to us. Let us start at the begin- 

 ning with one round egg in a mass of red caviar, lying on the 

 gravel at the bottom of a shallow rill of crystal-clear water 

 somewhere far up in the inland mountains. This is one of some 

 five thousand eggs laid by one mother and happens to be one 

 of only fifty or so that are destined to hatch and not be eaten 

 by ducks or trout or some lesser creature. The tiny fish that 

 emerges feeds on insect larvae and begins to drift slowly 



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