REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 81 



(quinnat and blue-back) enter the rivers to spawn, and in tlie fall these 

 young specimens are very numerous. We have thus far failed to notice 

 any gradations in size or appearance of these young fish by which their 

 ages could be ascertained. It is, however, probable that some of both sexes 

 reproduce at the age of one year. In. the Fraser River, in the fall, quin- 

 nat male grilse of every size, from eight inches upward, were running, 

 the milt fully developed, but usually not showing the hooked jaws and 

 dark colors of the older males. Females less tlian eighteen inches in 

 length were not seen. All of either sex, large and small, then in the 

 river had the ovaries or milt developed. Little blue-backs of every 

 size, down to six inches, are also found in the upper Columbia in the 

 fall, with their organs of generation fully developed. Nineteen twen- 

 tieths of these young fish are males, and some of them have the hooked 

 jaws and red color of the old males. Apparently all these young fishes, 

 like the old ones, die after spawning. 



The average weight of the adult quinnat in the Columljia, in the 

 spring, is 22 pounds; in the Sacramento, about 16 pounds. Individuals 

 weighing from 40 to 60 pounds are frequently found in both rivers, and 

 some as high as 80 or even 100 pounds are recorded, especially in 

 Alaska, where the species tends to run larger. It is questionable 

 whether these large fishes are those which, of the same age, have grown 

 more rapidly ; those which are older, but have for some reason failed to 

 spawn; or those which have survived one or more spawning seasons. 

 All these origins may be possible in individual cases. There is, how- 

 ever, no positive evidence that any salmon of the Pacific survives the 

 spawning season. 



Those fish which enter the rivers in the spring continue their ascent 

 until death or the spawning season overtakes them. Doubtless not one 

 of them ever returns to the ocean, and a large proportion fail to spawn. 

 They are known to ascend the Sacramento to its extreme headwaters, 

 about four hundred miles. In the Columbia they ascend as far as the 

 Bitter Root and Sawtooth mountains of Idaho, and their extreme limit 

 is not known. This is a distance of nearly a thousand miles. In the 

 Yukon a few ascend to Caribou Crossing and Lake Bennett, 2,250 

 miles. At these great distances, when the fish have reached the spawn- 

 ing grounds, besides the usually changes of the breeding season their 

 bodies are covered with bruises, on which patches of white fungus 

 {Saprolegnia) develop. The fins become mutilated, their eyes are often 

 injured or destroyed, parasitic worms gather in their gills, they become 

 extremely emaciated, their flesh becomes white from the loss of oil; and 

 as soon as the spawning act is accomplished, and sometimes before, all 

 of them die. The ascent of the Cascades and the Dalles of the Columbia 

 causes the injury or death of a great many salmon. 



When the salmon enter the river they refuse to take bait, and their 



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