SPAWNING SALMON, &-c. 77 



to subside after the first flood that succeeds the 

 spawning process you can see on the water-mark 

 thousands of eggs that have been washed away from 

 the beds. Conditions of weather and water have a 

 great effect on spawning salmon. When a freshet 

 comes, ahhough a fish has been on the bed for three 

 or four days, she will run up and continue spawning 

 again on a new bed. They spawn every hour in the 

 twenty-four, but the time they are most busy is 

 from about 6 p.m. till about midnight, when they 

 seem to get tired and fall back into the quiet water ; 

 but in the afternoon, from about three, they begin 

 to run up again. Both male and female shift after 

 they have spawned. I have never seen a fish clean 

 spawned out ; as they retain a few eggs after they 

 have left the beds. If the frost is very severe, so 

 that it begins to take hold of the bottom (grue we 

 call it), the fish leave off spawning. If the male is 

 taken from the female, and there are plenty of males 

 about, another one takes its place in a few minutes. 

 I have known of over a dozen males taken from the 



