208 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



of the British and Russian possessions, contain them in vast 

 n ambers. 



Dr. Suckley, in his report on the fishes collected on the 

 Pacific Eailroad Survey, says, in that part of it devoted to 

 the Salmonidae of the North- West Coast : " The species of 

 Salmon which is principally used for salting in Puget Sound, 

 is the Skowite, an autumnal visitor. Of these Messrs. Eiley 

 & Swan, proprietors of the Salmon-packing establishment at 

 the mouth of the Puyallup Eiver, have taken three thousand 

 at one haul of the seine." Fisheries, I am told, have been 

 established on the Bel and Eussian Eivers of California, but 

 owing to the lack of practical knowledge in preserving the 

 fish, they have not proved remunerative. It is said, that 

 notwithstanding the great numbers of Salmon in the rivers 

 of our North- West Coast, where they collect in great shoals 

 at the falls, and rub their noses raw in their efforts to 

 get up the rapids, and where a spear thrown at random strikes 

 a fish, that they are never known to take the fly. This may 

 be for the want of the proper kinds of pools that make a fly- 

 cost; there is no doubt, however, that it will yet be found, 

 that there are casts on some of those rivers where a proper 

 combination of fur and feathers will entice them 



If we believe the tales of explorers — and they seem probable 

 — there are whole tribes of Indians on the Pacific, as well as 

 on the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, from Macken- 

 zie's Eiver eastward, and into Hudson's Bay, who would 

 become extinct but for the periodical appearance of almost 

 incredible numbers of these fish. There is no doubt that 

 they are the chief food, for a great part of the year, of the 

 tribes that dwell on the rivers that debouch into Baffin's 

 Bay, Davis's Strait, and the streams on the coast of Labrador, 

 and that such is also the case to a great extent with the 

 barbaric tribes of northern Asia above the sixtieth parallel, 



