586 MR. J. A. MILNE ON THE 



clearly defined, and the change of growth, which I can only 

 suppose to be due, as in the case of the true salmon, to the 

 commencement of sea, life, is more gradual and not so Avell marked. 

 In addition to this, the long axis of the scale frequently shows 

 more than one change of direction, the scale apparently being 

 liable to get turned round in the skin-pocket. The accompanying 

 photograph (text-fig. 102) will show my meaning. I have not 

 measured such scales as these. 



To come now to what is known, and to what I think I may claim 

 to have found out about the various species of Pacific Salmon. 



The Sockeye. {Oncorliynclms nerha.) 



First I take the Sockeye, because it is the mainstay of the 

 canning industry of the West. The number of Sockeyes canned 

 oia the Pacific coast in 1909 must have attained to the enormous 

 total of about 50 millions. The exact weight was 2 14,980,448 lbs., 

 or nearly 100,000 tons. 



Text-fig. 103. 



. ^^-. .- - - . - --^1 



Sockej^es {Oncorliynchus nerka) running up Scotch Creek, a tributary- of the Fraser 

 River, British Cohimbia. (Photograph reproduced by kind permission of 

 Mr. Frank Parry.) 



The Sockeye is not much in evidence south of the Columbia 

 River, in which it is known as the Blueback, but is plentiful from 

 there the whole way north to Bering Sea. In Alaska it is known 

 as the Red Salmon. The chief Sockeye stream is the Fraser 

 River, which these fish ascend to spawn in countless myriads. 

 The feeding-ground of the Sockeyes is somewhere far out in the 

 Pacific, and the fish seem to cease feeding before they approach 

 the coast, for even when caught in the sea near the coast their 



