888 FISHES — Sji-LMONID-S). 



said over ittlieii mcantatiocs, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a fish, 

 a oniions little fellow, only half an inch long, with great, staling eyes which made 

 almost half his length, and a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He 

 was a little salmon, a very little salmon, bnt the water was good, and there were flies, 

 and worms, and little liying creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he soon became a 

 larger salmon. And there were many more little salmon with him, some larger and some 

 smaller, and they all had a merry time. Those who had been born soonest and had 

 gro\?n largest used to chase the others around and bite off their tails, or, still better, 

 take them by the head and swallow them whole, for, said they, ' Even young salmon 

 are good eating.' ' Heads I win, tails you lose ' was their motto. Thus, what was once 

 two small salmon became united into one larger one, and the process of 'addition, 

 division, and silence,' still went on. 



" By-andby, when all the salmon were too small to swallow the others, and too large 

 to be swallowed, they began to grow restless and to sigh for a change. They saw that 

 the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and one of them 

 suggested that its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its 

 course. Then all started down the stream, salmon-fashion, which fashion is to get into 

 the current, head up-stream, and so to drift backward as the river sweeps along. 



" Down the Cowlitz River they went for a day and a night, finding mnoh to interest 

 them which we need not know. At last, they began to grow hungry, and, coming near 

 the shore, they saw an angle- worm of rare size and beauty floating in an eddy of the 

 stream. Quick as thought one of the boys opened his mouth, which was well filled with 

 teeth of different sizes, and put it around that angle worm. Quicker still he felt a sharp 

 pain in his gills, followed by a smothering sensation, and in an instant his comrades 

 saw him rise straight into the air. This was nothing new to them, for they often leaped 

 out of the water in their games of hide-and-seek, but only to come down again with a 

 loud splash not far from where they went out. But this one never came back, and the 

 others went on their course wondering. 



"At last they came to where the Cowlifz and Columbia join, and they were almost 

 lost for a time, for they could find no shores, and the bottom and the top of the water were 

 BO far apart. Here they saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, 

 turning neither to the right nor left, but swimming straight on up jnst as rapidly as they 

 could. And these great salmon would not stop for them, and would not lie and float 

 with the current. They had no time to talk, even in the simple sigo-langnage by which 

 fishes express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had an important work before them 

 and the time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping their great purposes to 

 themselves, and our little salmon and his friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the 

 Btream. 



" By-and by the water began to change. It grew denser, and no longer flowed rapidly 

 along, and twice a day it used to turn about and flow the other way. And the shores 

 disappeared, and the water began to have a different and peouliar flavor — a flavor which 

 seemed to the salmon much richer and more inspiriog than the glacier-water of their 

 native Cowlitz. Andthere were man^ curious things to see ; crabs with hard shells and 

 savage faces, but so good when crushed and swallowed ! Then there were luscious squids 

 swimming about, and, to a salmon, squids are like ripe peaches and cream for dinner. 

 There were great companies of delicate sardines and herring, green and silvery, and it 

 was SDch fun to chase them and to capture them. 



