Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/87

 —blueback on the Columbia, sock-eye or saw-qui on Puget Sound and Fraser river, and red fish or red salmon in Alaska. With the exception of the humpback, it is the smallest of the five species, the largest individuals rarely exceeding 10 pounds in the Columbia, and the average weight is about 4½ pounds. In various inland lakes it is much smaller, and weighs about y 2 pound when mature, and is then called the little red fish.

It closely follows the Chinook run in the Columbia river in the spring. The Chinook enter the river in small numbers in January, the blueback following in March. It ascends only those streams which rise in cold snow-fed lakes. Its favorite spawning ground in the Columbia river basin is Wallowa lake, in Northeastern Oregon. Its spawning period is from August 1st to October 1st.

Until the breeding season the blueback is a bright blue on the top, shading grad- ually to the middle, where it becomes a bright silver in color. It is very symmet- rical in shape. Its flesh, prior to the breeding season, is a bright red, which color is retained in cooking and which makes it, next to the Chinook, the most valuable for canning purposes. At the spawning period the male fish develops an extravagantly hooked jaw, the color changes to a blood red on the back and to a dark red on the sides. Unlike the Chinook, they do not run in abundance every year, the large runs coming every four years and a lesser run every two years. Ten years ago the species were much more abundant in the Columbia than at present. The year 1894 witnessed the largest run of these fish in that /stream ever known since the inception of the salmon canning industry. Since that year there has been a marked decline in the run of these fish, and many who have studied this question believe that the blueback is threatened with extinction on the Columbia river. This would seem to be the inevitable result of the neglect of the state to take the most ordinary pre- caution for the protection of this fish. The blueback formerly spawned in large num- bers in Wallowa lake, and the young pass- ed down Wallowa river to the sea. Farm- ers and ranchers for years have connected their irrigating ditches with the stream

and have failed to erect suitable screens, which has resulted in thousands upon thousands of young fish being carried out upon the open fields to perish. This drain upon the fountain head of supply has nearly exterminated the blueback run of the Columbia river. All irrigating ditch- owners along the Wallowa river should be required to put in and maintain suit- able screens to prevent the small fish from passing out upon the fields. The general fisheries bill recently passed re- quires such screens to be erected. The blueback averages about 1,000 eggs to the fish.

The humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) is the smallest of the Oncor- hynchus, averaging less than five pounds, and seldom weighing as much as nine pounds. It rarely enters the Columbia river, but is found in great abundance in Alaska. The flesh is of fine flavor, but is neglected by canners because of its lack of color. It is probable, however, that it will eventually be utilized for canning purposes by Alaskan cannerymen.

When this salmon first enters fresh water it greatly resembles a small Chi- nook, but as it approaches the spawning period it develops a large and prominent hump on its back, hence the name "hump- back." This, with the distortion of the jaws, the sloughing of the skin and flesh, which is incident to spawning, result in the death of all the fish on the spawning grounds. There are only a few hundred eggs to each fish, they being smaller than those of the Chinook but larger than those of the blueback, and paler in color than the eggs of either of those species.

Silver salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutsch), also called silversides, skowitz, kisutsch, hoopid salmon, and coho salmon. It is one of the handsomest of the salmon family, being symmetrical in form and of a beau- tiful silver color. It is inferior for can- ning purposes to the Chinook and blue- back, for the reason that it will not retain its color in cooking. Large numbers of this species, however, are utilized on the Columbia river. Its average size in that stream is about eleven pounds. It enters the river in Septembei and continues to run until November; it does not go to the headwaters like the Chinook and blue- back, but spawns in the lower river. The