Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/85

 appearance and condition in the month of August with many of the same species that do not leave the ocean and enter the river until that month.

Chinook salmon do not feed after entering fresh water; their stomachs and throats become entirely incapacitated for receiving food, and the desire and ability to feed leave them entirely. The great reserve of flesh and blood acquired on the rich feeding grounds of their ocean home enables them to keep the vital organs active until their mission up the freshwater streams is accomplished. Chinook salmon that ascend 150 miles from the ocean to spawn do not return to it again, but die on their spawning grounds. This has been disputed but it is undoubtedly true. After spawning the deterioration is very rapid, the flesh grows pale and they become foul, diseased and very much emaciated; their scales are wholly absorbed in the skin, which is now of a dark olive or black hue; and their heads and bodies are covered with fungus; the skin is worn off in places, and their bodies are bruised from buffeting with the current among the rocks and boulders; their tails and fins

are frayed and torn and shortly after spawning they die from exhaustion. This is the fate, I think, of 90 per cent, of the Chinook that enter the Columbia. There are possibly 10 per cent, of this species that enter the river only a short time before their spawning period that do not get far above tidewater; these probably survive and return to the ocean.

The spawning period for the Chinook on the Columbia extends from July 15 to November 15. There is a popular belief among the cannerymen and fishermen on the Columbia that only the early spawning fish are of commercial value; that the fish which spawn in September and October produce a run that does not enter the river until after the lawful fishing season. In other words, they claim that the operation of the hatchery during the months of September and October is producing a fall run of fish of no practical value. This theory has been proven an error through the experimental studies with the marked salmon hereafter referred to. The eggs from which these marked fry were hatched were taken late in the month of September, 1895, and all