4 
Old age conies fast with these great fishes, for they enter the streams 
on their spawning journey in the full vigor and beauty of maturity, 
fight their way doggedly through the rapids and up the waterfalls, 
and a few months later, having provided for the perpetuation of their 
race, they die, bruised, weak, and miserable. 
The eggs which they deposit, in nests scooped in the gravelly bot¬ 
toms of the streams, or which the fish culturists of the Bureau of 
Fisheries and the States take from them by abdominal section, look 
like transparent pink pearls the size of a pea, and from them the 
young fish emerge in the course of a couple of months in the waters of 
the coast States, or after the entire winter in the chillv waters of 
Alaska, where development is slower. On hatching the fish are mere 
wrigglers less than an inch in length, without a useful mouth or the 
capacity to feed. Under its belly, however, each carries a little nod¬ 
ule, holding enough yolk or foodstuff from the egg to carry it along 
until the mouth is ready to take food and the little fish is strong 
enough to pursue its microscopic prey. 
Not very much is known of the life history of the Pacific coast 
salmons. The habits of fish can not be studied as are the habits of 
birds, for during most of their life they are rarely or never seen by 
man, and obviously they can not be followed or trailed like land 
animals. To a very large extent, the study of the habits of fishes 
consists of making many scattered observations and connecting them 
by more or less accurate deductions as to the behavior of the fishes 
when they are out of view. But there has recently developed an indi¬ 
rect method which bids fair to outvalue in many ways the method 
previously used. 
Scientific men. in the course of what the “ practical man ” is pleased 
to call “ impractical ” work, observed that fish scales under the micro¬ 
scope showed certain characteristic marks, and by studying the 
meaning of these and interpreting them it has been possible by this 
means alone to work out a reasonably accurate and complete account 
of the lives of certain species. By examination and measurement of 
the scales of the European salmon, for instance, it is possible to tell 
the size and age of the fish, how long it remained in fresh water after 
it was hatched, the length of time and approximately when it lived 
in the sea, and the number of times that it has spawned, for unlike 
its Pacific relatives, the Atlantic salmon spawns several times in the 
course of its natural life. 
An application of these principles to the Pacific salmons, of which 
there are five species, shows that the young of some go to sea soon 
after they are hatched, while others may remain for a year or so in 
their natal streams. Most of the life of these fishes is spent at sea 
and practically all of their growth is reached there, for after they 
enter the streams to spawn they cease to feed. 
