SPAWNING HABITS OF THE CALIFORNIA SALMON. 483 



a knowledge of what lies before them, none of the martyrs of Christendom could claim greater 

 merit than these devoted Salmon that march on unflinchingly to inevitable death. From the time 

 the Salmon leave the border land, so to speak, of tide water, they pursue their upward course 

 towards the rivers' sources with an inflexible pertinacity. Nothing can now check their upward 

 career, except an obstacle positively insurmountable, and nothing whatever can make them turn 

 back. They steadily pursue their way through the deeper and stiller waters of the lower portions 

 of the rivers. They dash furiously up the rapids, halting awhUe usually before they enter them 

 to recruit their strength, and continue to rush on and on through the swiftest, shallowest, and 

 roughest waters until they reach suitable places for depositing their spawn. The earliest runs, 

 that is, those that enter the rivers first, usually go farthest up the stream. Those that come in next 

 seem to take their places below them, and so on down the river, so that there is a series of sets of 

 spawning fishes, extending from the head of the river down as far as suitable spawning grounds 

 are to be found ; the set highest up the river spawning first, and so on dow^ the river in regular 

 order. If the Salmon on their way up a river meet with anything that frightens them, like a 

 bridge for instance, they usually stop and cautiously examine it until they are satisfied that they 

 can risk the venture, and then they all together, as if by a given signal, make a swift rush past it. 

 When they come to a fall they show more perseverance than Eobert Brace's famous spider, for 

 they try innumerable times to jump it, and never give it up until they have found it to be a 

 hopeless case and are completely worn out with the exertion. 



I said nothing can turn them back. When thoroughly frightened and panicked, however, 

 they act like stampeded cattle and can be driven down the river in droves. The Indians take 

 advantage of this weakness of the Salmon in one of their methods of capturing them. They 

 build a trap nearly across a river that is not too deep for the purpose, and then great numbers of 

 them wading into the stream a mile or two above the traps form a line across the river, and with 

 sticks, poles, and branches of trees, use their utmost exertions to frighten the Salmon, till at last 

 the fish, too astounded and panic-stricken to know what they are about, turn around, and heading 

 down the river, rush with all their speed into the traps that are waiting for them. 



In their course up the river it does not discourage them if the water is shallow. They will 

 push on where the water does not cover their backs, and crowd together in doing so, till, as some 

 one has jokingly remarked, they hardly leave room for the water. 



There is something amazing about these pilgrimages of theirs up the rivers. The wonder is 

 not so much that the Salmon go without food for so long a time — the black bass does the 

 same — nor that they make such great exertions in getting up the rivers, for other creatures 

 make greater exertions in getting their food, but the marvel is in the combination of these two 

 facts, viz, in their making these exhausting efforts without taking any food to keep up their 

 strength. It seems incredibly contradictory to nature's laws of life and offersa puzzling problem 

 to biologists to discover where the fuel comes from which does this immense amount of work, 

 accomplished by the migratory Salmon between leaving tide water and completing the season's 

 spawning. 



Speed op ASOENT.— Their rate of progress up the rivers varies between very wide limits. 

 The earlier runs are the longest time on their way up the river. The latest runs make the journey 

 most quickly. The fish seem to regulate their speed according to the forwardness of their eggs. 

 When their eggs are very small or almost wholly undeveloped, as is the case with the earliest 

 runs — that is, those that enter the mouth of the rivers first — they seem to be in no hurry, but 

 loiter along as they please, and probably spend a great deal of time between the ocean and the 

 fresh-water line; but when their eggs are nearly ripe, as is the case with the later runs, they 



