44 Salmon at the Antipodes. 



gaff or a crook stick, tons of salmon could 

 have been procured by the simple process of 

 booking tbem out. ... At tbe end of tbis 

 pebble stream was a waterfall, beyond wbicb 

 no fish could by any possibility pass. Having 

 arrived at tbis barrier to all further progress, 

 there they obstinately remained, and weeks 

 were spent in watching them ; but I never, in 

 a single instance, saw one turn back and en- 

 deavour to seek a more congenial watercourse, 

 but, crowded from behind by fresh arrivals, 

 they died by the score, and, drifting slowly 

 along, in time reached the larger stream. . . . 

 The Indians say all the salmon that come up 

 to spawn die. . . . Why there should be this 

 marvellous waste of salmon in the rivers of 

 the north-west I am somewhat puzzled to 

 imagine." This writer states that the salmon 

 die where they have only to ascend 200 miles 

 in one river, while they ascend over 1000 miles 

 in another with the same result, and gives his 

 opinion that the fish die " from sheer starva- 

 tion," as the salmon " never feed after leaving 

 salt water." He also states that, in the 

 Fraser, he tried in every way to coax them to 

 take the fly, but was in no instance successful, 



