THE PACIFIC SALMON 
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to reach their spawning beds, and they all die 
immediately after spawning! 
The sea is the home of all the Pacific salmon, 
and except when the young are floating toward 
it from their birth-place, it contains their food. 
Of their life in the sea, little is known. They 
are nowhere numerous, and trolling for them in 
salt water is interesting sport. 
Throughout the months of spring and summer, 
the salmon leave the sea, enter the large rivers, — 
and many small ones, also, — and proceed upward 
for hundreds of miles, to deposit their eggs as 
far as possible from salt water. In the Colum- 
bia and Yukon Rivers, and their tributaries, it 
“is the habit of salmon to ascend 
for a thousand miles or more before 
spawning!” 
The “run” begins with the advent 
of spring, when the salmon travel up 
the rivers until they can ascend no 
farther. It is on these runs that 
the fish congregate in such incredible 
numbers that sometimes they actual- 
ly crowd each other, and can be pho- 
tographed en masse. They rush up 
rapids, and if cascades or low water- 
falls are encountered, they leap atop 
of them with a display of energy and 
activity that is, when first heard of, 
almost beyond belief. 
“When the Pacific salmon reach 
maturity,” says Mr. Cloudsley Rutter, 
in “Country Life,” “they seek fresh 
water to spawn. As soon as they 
leave their accustomed salt-water 
food, they stop eating. It is not 
uncommon for fishes of the Salmon Family to 
fast during the breeding season, but the Pacif- 
ic salmons never taste food after leaving salt 
water, and their fast ends only with death. 
This is true of all species of Pacific salmons, and 
is without a parallel among the higher fishes. 
“As the salmon advances into fresh water, 
the digestive organs shrivel to one-tenth their 
natural size, all the fat disappears from the 
tissues, the flesh turns white, and the skin thick- 
ens and embeds the scales till they cannot be seen. 
By the time spawning begins the fish has lost 
about twenty per cent of its weight, and some- 
times much more. In fresh water, the jaws of 
the males become much prolonged and hooked, 
and large canine teeth appear. The body be- 
comes deep and slab-sided; and the skin turns 
reddish in most species. No individual of either 
sex of any species of Pacific Salmon ever re- 
turns to the ocean after spawning.” 
Concerning the Chinook salmon, Drs. Jordan 
and Evermann say that the run begins in the 
Columbia River as early as February or March. 
The fish move up without feeding, travel leis- 
urely at first, but as they advance farther they 
move more rapidly. Many of them pause not 
until they have found satisfactory spawning 
beds in the Snake and Salmon Rivers, among the 
Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, more than 1,000 
miles from the sea. “ Those which go to the head 
waters of the Snake River spawn in August and 
early September ; those going to the Big Sandy 
in Oregon, in July and early August; those going 
up the Snake to Salmon Falls, in October; while 
those entering the lower tributaries to the Co- 
lumbia, or small costal streams, spawn even as 
late as December.” 
“The spawning extends over several days, the 
eggs being deposited upon beds of fine gravel, 
in clear, cold mountain streams.” The tempera- 
ture of the water must be about 54°, and if on 
arrival it is much above that, the fish wait until 
it lowers. (“American Food and Game Fishes.”) 
A very remarkable feature about the spawn- 
THE QUINNAT SALMON. 
