it I AND GAME 



Mm of salmon .rim; twenty-four hours each week; say, 



midnight of Saturday to midnight of Banday. Probably 1 1 » « - most seriou 



for ' ir rivci from mining. It li the most Berious, 



qoI 1>'- i ilmon were plenty and largely canghl 



by tli>" Indians ii. Feather River, in the Tuba, and in tin- American; but of bite 



•. isit these rivers, it i» not because the waters of these 

 re muddy. All migratory fish thai seek rivers In which to deposit i h<i r 

 spawn, <i" so i» the season when the I the water to !»• muddy. They 



will rough muddy water, if beyond they find clear water .* 1 1 n 1 clean gravelly 



t>. .r t <■!:;- . The gravel beds thai formerly existed In these streams arc now covered 

 with :i deposit of mud, washed down from the mines; and on 1 1 * i ^ the eggs of ill" 

 s;ilni"ii will not batch. Neither will t! of the salmon or trout hatch in water 



taining any considerable quantity of Bediment. A small quantity of the dj 

 sedimenl deposited on the <-^^^ prevents it from hatching. 



Salmon, after tin- Becond year from being hatched, pa^s the greater pari of 

 t li« • time in the ocean; they there find their principal food. While in fresh water 

 their growth is slow, in snl t water they increase in size mid weight with great 

 rapidity. Tiny can only breed in shallow streams of cool, fresh water, such as they 

 find in the tributaries of our river- ding from die mountains. To roch pit 



they annually resort; and to reach them, they will make the most extraordinary 

 ■dons. Salmon are caught hy the Indians in the small streams that empty into 

 the Sacramento from the sides of Mount Shasta, at an elevation of more than four 

 thousand feet above the level of the sea: to reach which they must have passed 

 through at least fifty miles of almost continuous rapids. Bishop Farr states that 

 salmon are also caught in the headwaters of Snake River, east of Salt Lake. As 

 Snake River is a tributary of the Columbia, these fish must annually make a journey 

 into the interior of more than c thousand miles from the ocean. 



Some breeding fish enter our rivers (luring the summer, but they do not deposil 

 their eggs until late in the autumn. During the time they remain in fresh water 

 they lose in weight, and the quality of their flesh deteriorates ; its color becomes 

 nearly white, and it ceases to he firm. The great army arrives in our rivers after 

 the first heavy rains. Upon arriving they seek the brackish water in the vicinity of 

 where the salt and fresh waters meet. Here they remain for several days, or 

 perhaps weeks. It is supposed that the brackish water kills the small parasites which 

 attach to them in the ocean. It is this instinct that retains them in brackish water 

 that gives to Rio Yista its prominence as a fishing point. 



The salmon, like most other fish, reproduces its kind from eggs which are 

 extruded from the female fish in an undeveloped and infeeund state. The male fish 

 performs his office of fecundation after the eggs are in the water. It is a remark- 

 able fact, that the salmon will return, year after year, to deposit its spawn in the 

 particular stream in which it was hatched. Salmon hatched artificially in Scotland 

 and kept in breeding ponds, were, for several years, marked before being dismissed 

 to the ocean ; the salmon, thus marked, invariably returned to the stream in which 

 they passed their infancy, and, so far as is- known, these marked salmon have never 

 been taken in any other river. The pair having arrived in their parent stream, 

 find a gravel bed, where the water is clear and cold. The female burrows a hole 

 in the gravel about four inches deep, and of a diameter nearly equal to her length, 

 then pressing her body against the upper edge of the hole, the eggs are extruded 

 and fall into this nest. The male, who is in close attendance, extrudes his milt into 

 the water which flows over these eggs, and they are thus fecundated. The female 

 immediately busies herself in covering the eggs with the gravel. This process is 

 again repeated in a few days, as more eggs become ready for extrusion, until the 

 season's work is over, when the fish return, poor and thin, and, after remaining for 

 a short time in brackish water, leave for unknown places in the ocean, to return 

 the following season, largely increased in weight. The only condition requisite for 

 the hatching of the eggs is that cool, pure water, free from dirt or sediment, shall 

 constantly pass over them. In from ninety to one hundred 1 and thirty days the 

 young fish are hatched. For the first twenty or thirty days they require no food, 



