io WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



they depart lean; and when afar on the waves the 

 chances are few that salmon ever become their 

 prey. Still I have no proof of error in the warden's 

 figures. I will accept them just now, — the five 

 hundred pounds of fish a day for the sea-lion, and 

 the forty-nine salmon fry for the cormorant (they 

 would easily total, four years later, on their way 

 up the Columbia to the canneries, a half ton), — 

 accepting this fearful loss of Chinook salmon then 

 as real, is there any answer to my question, Why? 

 any good and sufficient reason for setting aside 

 such a reservation as Three-Arch Rocks? for my- 

 self protecting the wild life of these barren rocks 

 against myself? 



No, perhaps not, — not if this protection of cor- 

 morants and sea-lions means the utter loss of the 

 salmon as an industry and as an article of food. 

 But there is an adequate and a paying catch of 

 salmon being taken in the Columbia this year, in 

 spite of the lions and the cormorants, as there will 

 be again next year, for the state hatcheries have 

 liberated over seven million young salmon this 

 summer and sent them safely down the Columbia 

 to the sea. No, perhaps not, — no good and suf- 

 ficient reason for such protection, were I an Astoria 



