“At every stage of its career the salmon is surrounded by enemies. At the very moment of spawning, the female is watched by a horde of devourers, who instinctively flock to the breeding-grounds in order to feast on the ova. The hungry pike, the lethargic perch, the greedy trout, the very salmon itself, are lying in wait, all agape for the palatable roe, and greedily swallowing whatever quantity the current carries down. Then the waterfowl eagerly pounces on the precious deposit the moment it has been forsaken by the fish; and if it escape being gobbled up by such cormorants, the spawn [pg 164]may be washed away by a flood, or the position of the bed may be altered, and the ova be destroyed, perhaps for want of water. As an instance of the loss incidental to salmon-spawning in the natural way, I may just mention that a whiting of about three-quarters of a pound weight has been taken in the Tay with three hundred impregnated salmon ova in its stomach! If this fish had been allowed to dine and breakfast at this rate during the whole of the spawning season it would have been difficult to estimate the loss our fisheries would have sustained by his voracity. No sooner do the eggs ripen, and the young fish come to life, than they are exposed, in their defenceless state, to be preyed upon by all the enemies already enumerated; while, as parr, they have been taken out of our streams in such quantities as to be available for the purpose of pig-feeding and manure! Some economists estimate that only one egg out of every thousand becomes a full-sized salmon. Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart calculated that 150,000,000 of salmon ova are annually deposited in the river Tay; of which only 50,000,000, or one-third, come to life and attain the parr stage; that 20,000,000 of these parr become in time smolts, and that their number is ultimately diminished to 100,000; of which 70,000 are caught, the other 30,000 being left for breeding purposes. Sir Humphry Davy calculated that if a salmon produced 17,000 roe, only 800 of these would arrive at maturity. It is well, therefore, that the female fish yields 1,000 eggs for each pound of her weight; for a lesser degree of fecundity, keeping in view the enormous waste of life indicated by these figures, would long since—especially taking into account the destructive modes of fishing that used a few years ago to be in use—have resulted in the extinction of this valuable fish.
“The first person who ‘took a thought about the matter’—i.e., as to whether the [pg 165]parr was or was not the young of the salmon—and arrived at a solid conclusion, was James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who, in his usual impulsive way, proceeded to verify his opinions. He had, while herding sheep, many opportunities of watching the fishing streams, and, like most of his class, he wielded his fishing-rod with considerable skill. While angling in the tributaries of some of the Border salmon-streams, he had often caught the parr as it was changing into the smolt, and had, after close observation, come to the conclusion that the little parr was none other than the infant salmon. Mr. Hogg did not keep his discovery a secret, and the more his facts were controverted by the naturalists of the day the louder became his proclamations. He had suspected all his life that parr were salmon in their first stage. He would catch a parr with a few straggling scales upon it; he would look at this fish, and think it queer; instantly he would catch another, a little better covered with silver scales, but all loose, and not adhering to the body. Again, he would catch a smolt, manifestly a smolt, all covered with the white silver scales, yet still rather loose upon the skin, which would come off in his hand. Removing these scales, he found the parr with the blue finger-marks below them, and that the fish were young salmon then became as manifest to the shepherd as that a lamb, if suffered to live, would become a sheep. Wondering at this, he marked a great number of the lesser fish, and offered rewards (characteristically enough, of whisky) to the peasantry to bring him such as had evidently undergone the change predicted by him. When this conclusion was settled in his mind, the Shepherd at once proclaimed his new-gained knowledge. ‘What will the fishermen of Scotland think’ said he, ‘when I assure them, on the faith of long experience and observation, and on the word of one who can have no interest in instilling an untruth into their minds, that every insignificant parr with which the cockney fisher fills his basket is a salmon lost!’ These crude attempts of the impulsive Shepherd of Ettrick—and he was hotly opposed by the late Mr. Buist, of Stormontfield—were not without their fruits; indeed, they were so successful as quite to convince him that parr were young salmon in their first stage.”
The following amusing dialogue on the habits of the salmon once took place between the Ettrick Shepherd and a friend:—
“Shepherd:—‘I maintain that ilka saumon comes aye back again frae the sea till spawn in its ain water.’
“Friend:—‘Toots, toots, Jamie! hoo can it manage till do that? Hoo, in the name o’ wonder, can a fish, travelling up a turbid water frae the sea, know when it reaches the entrance to its birthplace, or that it has arrived at the tributary that was its cradle?’
“Shepherd:—‘Man, the great wonder to me is no hoo the fish get back, but hoo they find their way till the sea first ava, seein’ that they’ve never been there afore!’ ”
The canned salmon, now generally popular in England, and which, though some few years ago an expensive luxury, is now within the reach of all, comes principally from the Columbia River, Oregon, and other parts of the North Pacific coasts. In North-Western America the fish is a perfect drug in the market. In a city like San Francisco it sells for eight cents (4d.) per pound. Higher up the coast a large fish is obtained for a quarter to half a dollar. Further north a piece of tobacco or a few needles will purchase a twenty or thirty pound salmon. They are so abundant that the writer has seen them on the beaches of streams and creeks falling into Frazer River, British Columbia, by the score, bleeding, gasping, and dying, having literally crowded each other out of the water. “Schools” of them are often so densely packed together, that they impede the progress of canoes and boats.
The salmon fisheries of the Columbia, Oregon, itself one of the grandest rivers in the world, give employment to 4,000 men during the season, and nearly all the canned salmon consumed in Europe comes from it.[44] There are dozens of rivers on the north-west coast equally available, and the business even now is in its infancy; while salted, pickled, or smoked salmon, hardly ever reaches England from there at all. As will appear, there are splendid opportunities on that coast for hundreds of new-comers, it may almost be said with or without capital. It is needless to state that the former is always to be preferred. Where isn’t it?
Some ten or a dozen varieties of salmon and salmon-trout, Mr. Murphy tells us, enter the rivers of North-Western America, but only one is selected for commercial purposes. Two of the most delicate-eating varieties—the silvery-white and spring salmons—are never packed in tins, because their schools are less abundant and the fish themselves smaller. The hook-nosed and dog salmons are rarely eaten, except by Indians; while the man has not yet been discovered who would tackle the hump-back. The blue-back, or weak-toothed salmon, an inferior fish also, is only exported to the Sandwich Islands, where the natives are said to really prefer its lean and fibrous flesh to the more delicately-flavoured and succulent kinds. The salmon principally caught is distinguished by the Indians as the “Tyhee,” or chief; it is abundant, large, and most excellent eating; it possesses those “all-round” qualifications which particularly fit it for commerce and cooking. It is the Salmo quinnat of the naturalists.
The fishery season on the Columbia lasts from the beginning of April to the end of [pg 167]July, and the fisheries extend along the river for a hundred miles or more. Some of the curing establishments employ their own men to tend the nets, while others purchase from fishermen, the price for fish weighing from fifteen to forty pounds ranging from 25 cents to 50 cents (approximately one to two shillings). These prices would seem ridiculously low were it not for the abundance of the fish and the ease with which they are taken. A party of four men may secure from 300 to 2,000 salmon in twenty-four hours! Take the lowest estimate—300 at 25 cents. This gives 75 dollars (or £15) to divide among the four fishermen. But this would be a very poor catch. A thousand fish are no uncommon haul. This at the lowest price paid would give 250 dollars (£50) to be divided. Of course there is the wear and tear of boat and fishing gear to be considered.