SALMON OF NORTH-WESTERN AMERICA. The rivers of north-western America abound in salmon and trout to a degree not exceeded, and perhaps not equaled, in any other part of the world. Since the arable SALMON was written, a very interesting account of the most important species has been given by Mr. J. K. Lord, in his work entitled The Natura144 in Vancouver Island and British Col-umbib, (2 vols. Land. 1866), to which we are indebted also for accounts of the candle-fish. Vancouver island herring, and viviparous fish, noticed in this supplement. The first place must be given to name ot. /anal, of which quinnat is one of the Indian names, a fish similar in quality to our salmon, end sometimes 70 lbs. in weight. It is very thick in proportion to its t-ogth, the dorsal outline sli •Ittly a re h cd, almost forming a notch with the tail. The back is light steel blue, shuttling to a lighter tint on the imooreeptibly elumgirg to gray or silvery white. blushed over with pink., on the belly. The upper parts, and often also the lower. are thickly spotted with black stars. Salmon of this species ascend the Columbia, the Fraser. end other rivers in prodigious numbers at the spawning sea son, and proceed hundreds of miles, and even in the Columbia 1000 miles, from the sea into every rivulet, "filling even pools left on the prairies and tints by the receding floods." ln what multitudes they ertmd up the rivers will be even better understood from the following statements of Mr. Lord, relating to a tributary of the Fraser: "About a mile fiain my camp was a large patch of pebbly ground, through which a shallow stream found its way into the larger river. Though barely of sufficient depth to cover an ordinary-sized salmon, yet I have seen_that stream so filled, that fish pushed one another out of the water high and dry upon the pebbles With one's hands only, or, more easily, by employing a gaff or crook-stick, tons of salmon could have been pro cured by the simple process of hooking them cut." Mr. Lord goes on to express his opinion that thousands of the salmon ascending the small mountain-streams never can spawn from sheer want of rocra. He describes them as dying by scores at the base of a waterfall which they could not leap, where, however,•they persisted in remaining,till they died from inanition, fresh fish coming up us the dead ones floated down. A prodi gious stench arises from the multitudes of dead salmon floated down the rivers. The Indians say that all the salmon of this species that come up to spawn die in the rivers; and Mr. Lord believes that few, if any, ever reach the sea again. They seem not to eat when.in the fresh water, and cannot lie tempted either by fly or bait., nor is any food to be found in their stomachs, although, in the stomachs of those taken in the tideway or salt water, the remains of small fish and marine animals are to be found. This kind of salmon ascends the rivers in June and July, for, unlike the salmon of Britain, it spawns summer.—At the same time with satins quinnat, a smaller species, called by the Indians, at the Kettle falls, cha-la-lool (saline Guirdneri). ascends the rivers. Its average weight is only from eight to eleven pounds, but when it first arrives in the fresh water its flesh is fat, pink, firm, and most delicious.—A little later in the season comes the WEAK-TooTnED SALarox (saline autumn, also, has its supply of salmon, quite equal to that of spring in point of numbers, but inferior in quality. They ascend the rivers in September and October. The autumnal salmon (salmo lycaodon of. Pallas),
a species known also in northern Asia, is a dingy hook-nosed fish, called hooked snout by the fur-traders. The hooked snout, however, is peculiar to the males. Salmon of this species are to be found "in every stream and rill whero they can by any possibility work a passage," and they often remain in fresh water, far from the sea, for four or six months, all of them becoming emaciated, and many of them dying, while the snout of the male becomes prodigiously elongated, and the teeth also increase into tusks. As to the multitudes of the full-grown fish of this species to be found at the proper season in the rivers of north-western America, the following extract from Mr. Lord's book is con clusive: "At fort Hope, on the Fraser river, in the month of September, I was going trout-fishing in a beautiful stream, the Qua-oue-alla, that conies thundering and dancing down the Cascade mountains, cold and clear as crystal; these salmon were then toiling up in thousands, and were so thick in the fork that I had great trouble to ride my horse through: the salmon were in such numbers about his legs as to impede his progress, and frightened him so that he plunged viciously, and very nearly had me off."—The RED SPOTTED SALMON TROUT (salmo speetabilis), is another valuable fish of the same regions. It seldom exceeds three pounds in weight. It ascends the rivers in October, when a great Indian fish-harvest takes place. This fish is readily taken by hooks baited with dried salmon-roe, or by a small shining strip from the belly of a trout.—The OREGON BROOK TROUT (salmo or fario stellatas) abounds in the rivers and streams of north-west ern America, even to a height of 7,000 ft. in the Rocky mountains. It attains a weight of threepounds. and is a delicious fish. This trout is readily taken with fly or bait.
The Indians of these regions take the salmon, as they ascend the rivers, by various contrivances. They construct weirs reaching from one side of a sire:int to the other, with openings, through which the fish pass into large lateral prisons of closely woven wicker. They use nets in the buys and harbors, when the salmon, pursuing anchovies and herrings, run into the net, and are caught, and thus immense numbers are taken. They construct rude scaffolds or stages of wood among the holders on the sides of large rivers, on each of which many Indian fishers await the salmon, with small nets fastened to handles, 40 or 50 ft. in length. Thirty salmon an hour is not an unusual take for two Indians to land on a stage. Another and more curious method, practiced at falls, is by means of great wicker hampers, about 30 ft. in circumference, and 12 ft. in depth. To make these available, huge trees are cut down, lopped clear of their branches, and brought to the edge of the river, where they are fastened so that the smaller ends over hang the foaming water. To these the wicker baskets are suspended, where the salmon generally leap in their attempt to clear the falls; and in each basket two naked Indians are stationed all day, frequent relays being necessary, as they are under a heavy fall of water. As the salmon fall into the basket, the Indians catch them under the gills, kill them with a club, and fling them on the rocks., Mr. Lord says: "I have known 300 salmon lauded from one basket between sunrise and sun set. varying in weight from 20 to 75 lbs." The salmon and trout of these regions have already been made in some small measure available for the markets of the more densely peopled parts of the world.