Scientific American Supplement, No. 275, April 9, 1881Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 275, April 9, 1881
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Those fish which enter the rivers in the spring continue their ascent until
death or the spawning season overtakes them. Probably none of them ever
return to the ocean, and a large proportion fail to spawn. They are known
to ascend the Sacramento as far as the base of Mount Shasta, or to its
extreme head-waters, about four hundred miles. In the Columbia they are
known to ascend as far as the Bitter Root Mountains, and as far as the
Spokan Falls, and their extreme limit is not known. This is a distance of
six to eight hundred miles.
At these great distances, when the fish have reached the spawning grounds,
besides the usual changes of the breeding season, their bodies are covered
with bruises on which patches of white fungus develop. The fins become
mutilated, their eyes are often injured or destroyed; parasitic worms
gather in their gills, they become extremely emaciated, their flesh
becomes white from the loss of the oil, and as soon as the spawning act
is accomplished, and sometimes before, all of them die. The ascent of the
Cascades and the Dalles probably causes the injury or death of a great many
salmon.
When the salmon enter the river they refuse bait, and their stomachs are
always found empty and contracted. In the rivers they do not feed, and when
they reach the spawning grounds their stomachs, pyloric coeca and all, are
said to be no larger than one's finger. They will sometimes take the
fly, or a hook baited with salmon roe, in the clear waters of the upper
tributaries, but there is no other evidence known to us that they feed when
there. Only the quinnat and blue-back (then called red-fish) have been
found in the fall at any great distance from the sea.
The spawning season is probably about the same for all the species. It
varies for all in different rivers and in different parts of the same
river, and doubtless extends from July to December.
The manner of spawning is probably similar for all the species, but we have
no data for any except the quinnat. In this species the fish pair off, the
male, with tail and snout, excavates a broad shallow "nest" in the gravelly
bed of the stream, in rapid water, at a depth of one to four feet; the
female deposits her eggs in it, and after the exclusion of the milt, they
cover them with stones and gravel. They then float down the stream tail
foremost. A great majority of them die. In the head-waters of the large
streams all die, unquestionably. In the small streams, and near the sea, an
unknown percentage probably survive. The young hatch in about sixty days,
and most of them return to the ocean during the high water of the spring.
The salmon of all kinds in the spring are silvery, spotted or not according
to the species, and with the mouth about equally symmetrical in both sexes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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