SALMON AND SALMON RIVERS OF ALASKA. 
197 
This salmon begins spawning soon after its arrival on the coast, and this varies 
with the locality. The season usually begins in June, and fish, which have not yet 
spawned, continue to arrive as late as the beginning of September. Spawning cer- 
tainly takes place in August, as we know from jjersonal observation. Dead fish and 
others which have spawned and are already dying are very abundant about the 
middle of this month. We did not find many Eed Salmon on our way up the Karluk 
Eiver. In Karluk Lake, near the sources of the river, ripe Eed Salmon were speared 
by the natives August 17. On the 18th of the same month we found large numbers of 
dead salmou of this species, and plenty of both sexes, which were spent and nearly 
dead, in the rivers connecting Karluk Lake with its tributary lakes. In all of the little 
streams falling into Karluk Lake, in which Eed Salmon were found, dead fish were 
moderately common. We found, also, an abundance of young salmou about 1^ inches 
long, which I suppose must have been young of the year, hatched from eggs deposited 
during the preceding winter. Mr. Charles Hirsch informed me that “ in March or 
April the Karluk Eiver is solid full for a whole mouth of salmon fry going down to 
sea.” 
We found salmon nests at the head of Karluk Lake in shallow water near the 
shore between the mouths of two streams. The nest is a hollow circular pile of stones, 
and the eggs are placed in the crevices between the stones. In the river connecting 
the east arm of Karluk Lake with its tributary additional nests of the salmon were 
observed. In some cases streams fall down, into Karluk Lake over bluffs, which are 
too steep for the salmou -to ascend, and the fish were spawning at the mouths of such 
streams. 
Extensive changes take place in the color of the Eed Salmon as the spawning 
season approaches. When it comes in from the sea the skin becomes dark and the 
beautiful red color of the flesh gives place to a paler tint. In this condition the fish 
has no commercial value. In the height of the spawning season the sides are suffused 
with a brilliant vermilion and the head is a rich olive-green, contrasting sharply with 
the color of the body. The male develops a hump, nearly as large as that of the Hump- 
back, and its jaws are greatly enlarged. 
The eggs and young of the Eed Salmou have many enemies, and the percentage 
of fish naturally developed from eggs must be exceedingly small. Every salmon nest 
has its greedy horde of little fresh-water sculpins, otherwise known as Miller’s thumbs, 
blobs and bull-heads ( Uraniclea spp.), always in readiness to consume the fresh eggs 
in quantities out of all proportion to their size. The shoal waters around the 
shores of Karluk Lake, and the shallow streams into which the Eed Salmon finds its 
way for reproduction, contain myriads of these destructive little sculpins. Another 
source of destruction to the eggs is found in the dolly varden trout {Salvelinns mabna), 
which is only too common on the spawning grounds of the salmon. This trout con- 
sumes large quantities of the fresh salmon eggs. The waters referred to contain, also, 
a great many sticklebacks {Gasterosteus sp.), some of them of very large size, and it is 
probable that these little fish destroy eggs. 
Chief among the destroyers of the young fish are terns, gulls, ducks, and loons, 
which are very common in that region. I shot some terns and gulls near the south end 
of Karluk Lake and upon holding them up by the legs small salmon dropped out of 
their mouths. Towards the end of August the shallow parts of Karluk Eiver were vis- 
ited by hundreds of gulls, chiefly young of Larus glaucescens and L. brachyrhynchus, 
