144 ANIMAL BIOLOGY 



millions of the Pacific Coast cheapened the name. To hold 

 their place in the hearts of sportsmen, game fishes must not 

 inhabit streams so thickly that they are crowded for room, 

 and can be caught with pitchforks. Yet this once was true 

 of the salmon in several streams of the Pacific Coast. The 

 bears of Alaska grow big and fat on the salmon which they 

 catch with the hooks that Nature gave them." ' 



The Pacific salmon are caught in the rivers that empty 

 into the Pacific Ocean, such as the Columbia, Sacramento, 

 and Yukon. The salmon reach their maturity in the ocean. 

 When, however, the spawning time approaches, the salmon 

 , make their way in great numbers to the mouths of rivers 

 like the Columbia and proceed up these streams, leaping 

 seemingly impassable waterfalls in order to reach the head- 

 waters. Here the sand is scooped out by the male, and 

 the female salmon deposits her eggs and the male the 

 fertilizing sperm-cells. The fertilized eggs are then covered 

 with sand. The parent fish soon die ; none ever reach the 

 ocean again. After the eggs hatch, the young slowly float 

 down the stream to the ocean to repeat l!he life of their 

 parents. 



It is when the fish are proceeding up the rivers that they 

 are caught. Sometimes they are so abundant that the river 

 seems to be choked with them. Salmon are shipped fresh in 

 ice. Enormous quantities are also canned and smoked. The 

 estimated value of the annual catch of Pacific salmon varies 

 from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000. 



108. The codfish. — Next in importance to the salmon, 

 at least in the United States, is the cod (Fig. 108), for which 

 the fishermen receive about $3,000,000. Other countries 

 engaged in the cod fisheries are Newfoundland, Canada, Nor- 



' From Hornaday's "American Natural History.'" 



