29 
The writer saw the salmon below the Clackamas rack 
almost every day during the summer of ’88. Hun- 
dreds of ether people saw them, too. The same thing 
has happened every year except that there are not so 
many fish now and they are not stopped so early in the 
year. The same thing happens every year at the Mc- 
Cloud River in California, where the U. S. Fish Com- 
mission has its salmon breeding station, named after 
Prof. Baird, which the writer has had charge of and 
where he has watched the salmon for nearly twenty 
seasons. The salmon do not feed in these streams, or 
if they do their food is invisible, The same thing hap- 
pens every year in Rogue River, Oregon, where Mr. 
Rk. ) Hume has had’ fer over fifteen years a salmon 
hatchery on a large scale. Mr. Hume says in his little 
pamphlet (‘‘Salmon of the Pacific Coast,” p. 25) that 
“it has been the custom at his hatching pond to hold 
salmon nearly four months, even after they had been 
held in the river for some time prior to being placed in 
the pond, and this without supplying them with any sort 
of food.” Many more instances might be furnished of 
salmon living a long time in fresh water without eating, 
but those just given would seem to be sufficient. It 
may be mentioned, however, as incidentally confirming 
this truth, that although hundreds of salmon have been 
found with absolutely nothing in their stomachs, not a 
single instance has ever come to light, at least to the 
writer's knowledge, of a genuine Chinook salmon being 
caught any considerable distance above tide water with 
a full stomach. Futhermore, although thousands of 
salmon have been known to live several months without 
eating, not a single case has ever been produced to show 
that a salmon has not been able to live in fresh water 
without eating. 
It does seem impossble that any creature above the 
grade of reptiles could live so long and keep so active 
without eating. It does seem impossible, and hence 
people argue that ‘“‘being impossible, it cannot be true,” 
