SALMON AND SALMON RIVERS OF ALASKA. 
195 
fish in the small streams at the head of the west arm of TJyak Bay trying to run up 
the rapids to spawn. Tlie current in some places was so swift as to wash the fish 
away. Eggs were very plentiful between the crevices of the stones. On the 24th of 
August we found Alexander’s Creek full of Humpbacks in all stages of emaciation and 
decay. In Alitak Bay, September 9, the fish were nearly all dead m the creeks, and 
Snug Harbor contained many dying Humpback Salmon floating seaward tail first. 
Messrs. Booth and Stone found Afoguak Eiver well filled with spawning Humpbacks 
August 30. The two tributaries of Afognak Eiver also contained them in great 
numbers. Mr. Booth found the fish most abundant in the neighborhood of holes exca- 
vated in the egg-sized gravel of the bottom, intermingled with stones of 3 or 4 pounds 
in weight. 
After the great run in the Karluk, already referred to, the fish came down dead 
or in a dying condition for a whole month and the beaches were strewn with dead sal- 
mon. The distortion of the Humpback dni ing the breeding season is remarkable and 
the injury to its fins, and other exposed portions of the body, is excessive. The last 
stages of this species are repulsive to look upon, but before the extensive emaciation 
and sloughing away of the skin has taken place the colors of the breeding-fish are 
rather pleasing, the lower parts becoming milky white, contrasting beautifully with the 
darker color of the sides and back. This white color sometimes extends uxiward 
towards the middle line with interruptions. 
The Red Salmon {Oncorhynchus nerl(a). 
(Plate XLViii, figs. 6 and 7.) 
This is the blue-back of the lower Columbia Eiver, the Sawqui or Siiklcegh of 
Frazer’s Eiver, and the Krasnaya Eyba (or redfish) of the Eussians. It does not seem 
to exist south of the Columbia Eiver. Northward it is found as far as the Yukon, and 
occurs also in Japan and Kamchatka. 
Although next to the smallest of the Pacific salmons this is now the most impor- 
tant species for canning and salting, and its flesh is so red as to win for it a reputation 
not warranted by its edible qualities. It approaches the shores early in the spring 
aud enters only snow- fed streams. The Eed Salmon is not caught, like the King Sal- 
mon and Silver Salmon, by trolling in tCe bays. When it comes into the mouths of 
the streams, to ascend for the purpose of spawning, the fishing begins. 
The size of the Eed Salmon varies with the locality and season. Some runs contain 
much larger fish than others. At Karluk the fish will average nearly 4 pounds apiece 
without the head, fins, tail, and viscera. The whole fish will weigh 7 or 8 pounds. Indi- 
viduals of 15 pounds are occasionally seen, but they are uncommon. 
Like the King Salmon, the Eed Salmon travels long distances up the rivers, push- 
ing on to their sources ; unlike the King Salmon, however, the Eed Salmon is chiefly a 
lake spawner, the former fish preferring the headwaters of the principal rivers to their 
small tributaries. 
Eed Salmon arrive at St. Paul, Kadiak, according to Mr. Washburn, agent of the 
Alaska Commercial Company, in June, and there is only one annual run. This gentle- 
man also informed me that there is a little run of small Eed Salmon in Little Afognak 
Eiver as early as April 1, but the principal run comes in June or July. In a river just 
10 miles distant from the Little Afoguak the first run does not arrive until about May 
20, At Karluk, in 1889, and around Kadiak generally, the species arrived late, and 
