THE SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 
15 
eries who Lad lived permanently in Alaska for ten or more years. In one instance a 
canneryman had set nets to take returning spent salmon, hut never caught a single 
fish. At the office of the Alaska Packers’ Association, in the presence of six or eight 
cannery superintendents, the same question was propounded, when one of them, from a 
Bering Sea cannery, said he had seen spent salmon returning to the sea. Upon closer 
inquiry, however, it was learned that the current at this locality was very strong and 
had swept the weakened and emaciated fish down, hut that they were heading 
upstream. I have personally seen both humpback and dog salmon swept downstream 
by the current to salt water, but they died, nevertheless. I have no doubt that all 
species of salmon, except some king salmon and steelhead trout, die after spawning, 
and I believe that if directly after spawning they were transferred to salt water they 
would also die. 
One of the greatest sources of destruction to the redlislqand, in fact, to all salmon, 
are the trout, both the Dolly Varden {Salveliniis malma) and the cut-throat {Salma 
mylHss). Early in the spring, or shortly before the redfish commence to run, the Dolly 
The Dolly Vauden Trovt (Salrelinns malma). 
Varden comes to the mouth of a stream and awaits the salmon, and about the same 
time the cut-throat comes down the stream to brackish water to welcome the new arri- 
vals^ together these two follow the salmon to the spawning-beds. The Dolly Varden 
is usually found wherever the salmon is, of whatever species; the cut-throat more 
rarely. On the spawning-grounds, when the ripe hsh deposit their eggs, the trout 
consume them in immense numbers. The Dolly Vardeu has been seen to take the 
salmon eggs as they were dropped. The salmon know these egg destroyers and will 
frequently dart at the trout, but the latter are quicker in their movements and get 
away without injury. 
The next great destroyer of the redfish eggs is the humpback salmon. When these 
fish have access to the redfish spawning-grounds, they will spawn over the redfish 
nests. The humpback arrives later than the redfish, and in building its nest the red- 
fish eggs are flung about, disturbed, and destroyed. Usually humpbacks are present 
in nearly all streams, though they can not ascend some that are open to redfish, 
because the latter are more vigorous and can surmount obstacles that the former can 
not. In such cases the humpback spawns in the lower courses of the stream in pools 
and eddies — in fact, often in brackish water and ou banks of sand and gravel that are 
exposed at low water, where the eggs are of course lost. 
