184 Observations on the Salmon of the Pacific. { March, 
them to ascend these fresh waters, and in a majority of cases these 
waters will be those in which the fishes in question were originally 
spawned. Later in the season the growth of the reproductive 
organs leads them to approach the shore and to search for fresh 
waters, and still the chances are that they may find the original 
stream. But undoubtedly many fall salmon ascend, or try to 
ascend, streams in which no salmon was ever hatched. 
It is said of the Russian river and other California rivers, that 
their mouths in the time of low water in summer, generally 
become entirely closed by sand bars, and that the salmon in their 
eagerness to ascend them, frequently fling themselves entirely out 
of water on the beach. But this does not prove that the salmon 
are guided by a marvelous geographical instinct which leads them 
to their parent river. The waters of Russian river soak through 
these sand bars and the salmon “ instinct,” we think, leads them 
mérely to search for fresh waters. 
This matter is much in need of further investigation; at pres- 
ent, however, we find no reason to believe that the salmon enter 
the Rogue river simply because they were spawned there, or 
that a salmon hatched in the Clackamas river is any the more 
likely on that account to return to the Clackamas than to go up 
the Cowlitz or the Deschittes. 
“ At the hatchery on Rogue river, the fish are stripped, marked 
and set free, and every year since the hatchery has been in opera- 
tion some of the marked fish have been re-caught. The young 
fry are also marked, but none of them have been re-caught.” 
This year the run of silver salmon in Frazer's river was very 
light, while on Puget sound the run was said by the Indians to be 
greater than ever known before. Both these cases may be due to 
the same cause, the dry summer, low water and consequent fail- 
ure of the salmon to find the rivers. The run in the sound is 
much more irregular than in the large rivers. One year they 
will abound in one bay and its tributary stream and hardly be 
seen in another, while the next year the condition will be reversed. 
At Cape Flattery the run of silver salmon for the present year 
was very small, which fact was generally attributed by the Indians 
to the birth of twins at Neah bay. 
In regard to the diminution of the number of salmon on the 
coast. In Puget’s sound, Frazer’s river and the smaller streams, 
there appears to be little or no evidence of this. In the Columbia, 
