Sores, in both male and female fish, often arise from injuries inflicted by the teeth of a jealous adversary; but these wounds are utterly different from the sloughing ulcer, arising, as I believe, from sheer lack of vital force. These salmon veritably consume themselves, and perish, when life’s stove burns out, for want of fuel to keep it alight.
In August the Chilukweyuk river became perfectly unendurable from the quantities of dead fish floating down. I had with me a splendid retriever, that, to my disgust and annoyance, used to amuse himself, during my absence from the tent, by swimming in after the floating salmon, bringing them ashore, and safely storing them in my canvas dwelling; and on my return I used to discover a heap of fish, the stench from which was beyond human endurance. If fastened out from the tent, he piled them up at the door: all the lessons bestowed on him failed to convince him of his folly; he stuck to his disagreeable habit with a perseverance worthy of a better cause.
Arriving a little later than the preceding, is a smaller fish, which I believe to be the Salmo paucidens (Weak-Toothed Salmon) of Sir J. Richardson, F. B. A., p. 223; the red charr of Lewis and Clark, but the red they allude to is a colour every one of the different species acquire after being a short time in the rivers.
This fish seldom attains a weight over from three to five pounds, and is called by the Indians, at the salmon-leap at Colville on the Columbia, stzoin; it is a very handsome fish, back nearly straight, a light sea-greenish colour; sides and belly silvery-white, tail very forked, fins and tail devoid of any spots; the teeth are wide apart, and not strongly implanted. I was disposed at first to think they were the young of some other species; but the Indians are positive they are not, and they spawn much as the others do. In a small stream or tributary to the Chilukweyuk river, a mountain-torrent on the west side of the Cascades flowing into the Fraser, on the banks of which I was for a long time encamped, and up which the salmon come in great numbers, I amused myself watching this species of salmon (Salmo paucidens) deposit their spawn. It was in August, the water clear as crystal, the bottom a fine brown gravel. A trench, that looked about three or four inches deep and three feet long, was muzzled out by the noses of the females. A female fish poised herself over the trench, head up-stream, and by a rapid vibration of her fins kept herself nearly still; this lasted about a minute and a half or two minutes, during which time a quantity of ova were deposited. She then darted off like an arrow; four males at once took her place over the spawn-bed, and remained, just as the female had done, about two minutes. On their leaving two females came, and were followed by the males, as before. The water was about four feet deep. I am quite sure, from often watching these streams, that one spawning-bed is used by a great many males and females: it was both curious and interesting to watch the extreme regularity with which the sexes succeeded each other.
The question as to what becomes of the young salmon after leaving the egg, is a query more easily asked than answered. There are no snug breeding-ponds, no cosy little aquariums or water-nurseries, where the baby-salmon may be watched and carefully tended until, honoured with a badge, it is sent away to travel through pelagic meadows, deep-sea forests, and ocean gardens, where, growing rapidly, bigger if not wiser, it returns to tell how long it has been away, and how rapidly it has grown. Assistance such as this falls not to the lot of the hunter-naturalist, who with prying eye peers, searches, and grubs about on the banks and into the depths of the lakes and mountain-torrents, in this far-western wilderness. Had he the eyes of Argus, he could only register a few hasty observations, and generalise on their value: he has no opportunities for investigations, such as they have, who at home can watch the egg in their very parlours, gradually shaping itself into the quaint little salmon; see it come from out the egg-case with its haversack of provender, wonderfully provided to supply its wants, until able to live by its own teeth and industry; track its growth and habits through its youthful days; then, marking it with a leaden medal, send it off to sea, to welcome it back after its wanderings a full-grown salmon.
It may be that Creative wisdom has implanted the same instinct in the North-western salmon, prompting it to obey similar laws, and follow the same routine as to the exodus seaward, and return to fresh-water, as directs it in our native streams: my own impression is, that the fish spawned in midsummer or autumn remain up in the lakes and deep still river-pools until the following summer freshets, when they take their departure for the sea as the fresh-run salmon come. I think so, because in the Sumass and Chilukweyuk lakes, already spoken of; along the banks of the Fraser river, and in the Osoyoos lakes and tributaries to the Columbia river, I have in September and October observed large shoals of what I believed to be young salmon, that disappear when the snow begins to melt during June and July in the following summer. I suspect the first flood carries them down and out to sea; but, after all, this is but surmise, and of little practical value.
I never caught salmon-fry whilst fishing for trout, as we could so easily do in our streams; and it is just possible that the rapid rise (unlike anything we know of in our streams) that takes place in every river, brook, and rivulet during midsummer, when the snow melts on the hills, reducing the temperature of the water down to freezing-point, may send the young salmon-fry into the saltwater at a very early period of its life. “At three days old he is nearly two grains in weight; at 16 months old he has increased to two ounces, or 480 times its first weight; at 20 months old, after the smolt has been a few months in the sea, it becomes a grilse of 8½ lbs., having increased 68 times in three or four months; at 2⅔ years old it becomes a salmon of from 12 to 15 lbs. weight, after which its increased rate of growth has not been ascertained; but by the time it becomes 30 lbs. in weight, it has increased 115,200 times the weight it was at first.”[2] These smolts that I have seen in shoals were about half an ounce in weight, the produce of the summer’s spawning. As I have stated, they disappear when the floods set in; and nothing more is seen of them until they return salmon of various sizes, from 2 lbs. to 75 lbs., or, as I believe, the Quinnat and Stzoin.
The next salmon in importance, as affording food to the Indians, is called by them at the Kettle Falls cha-cha-lool, and arrives with the quinnat. This is unquestionably a fully-matured fish, and a distinct species, answering in many particulars to the Salmo Gairdneri of Sir J. Richardson, F. B. A., ‘Fishes,’ p. 221; it will be as well to retain that name. It may be readily distinguished from the quinnat by its rounded blunt-looking nose, shorter and much thicker head, straighter back, and more slender figure—the tail not nearly as much forked. The entire colour of the back is much lighter, and thickly freckled, as are the fins and tail, with oval black spots. The average weight of the cha-cha-lool is from 8 to 11 lbs. This salmon is common in the Fraser, Chilukweyuk, and Sumass rivers, and in every stream along the mainland and island coasts up which salmon ascend. When they first arrive the flesh is most delicious—fat, pink, and firm withal, and to my palate finer than that of the mammoth quinnat. The Indians also prize these salmon, and pack them when dried in bales apart from the others.
Salmo Gairdneri and S. quinnat are the spring salmon, but the autumn has also its supply of ‘swimming silver,’ quite equal to that of spring in point of numbers, but inferior in quality. Up the Columbia in October to the Kettle Falls, and somewhat earlier in the Fraser and rivers north of it, comes an ugly, unprepossessing, hook-nosed, dingy-looking salmon, called by the Colville Indians Keasoo, by the Chinooks Ekewan, by the Clallams Kutch-kutch—the Hooked Snout of the fur-traders, Salmo lycaodon of Pallas, Zoog. Russ. Asiat.
When fresh-run, this fish in colour is of a silvery-grey lustre; back, overshot with a greenish hue; belly, silvery-white; no spots on either the back or sides. The hooked nose, said to be peculiar to the male fish after spawning, is a well-marked, constant, and specific character in every fresh-run fish, the females having at all times symmetrical jaws. I found, from carefully observing great numbers of these fresh-run males, that the hooked state of the snout differs very materially in fish arriving at the same period; and I am quite convinced that large numbers of these salmon do get back again to the saltwater after spawning, and that the strange change that takes place in the hooking over of the snout and growth of the teeth, during their sojourn in the rivers, remains a permanent mark; and the vast difference observable in the males, at the time of arrival, is simply attributable to the fact, that those having the large fanglike teeth and tremendously crooked snout are such as have been up the rivers perhaps the year before, or, it may be, long prior to that period.