1. The whale is sometimes pursued, harpooned and taken by the Indians, although it is much more frequently killed by running foul of the rocks in violent storms, and thrown on shore by the action of the wind and tide. In either case, the Indians preserve and eat the blubber and oil; the bone they carefully extract and expose to sale.
2. The porpoise is common on this coast, and as far up the river as the water is brackish. The Indians sometimes gig them, and always eat their flesh when they can procure it.
3. The skait is also common in the salt water: we saw several of them which had perished, and were thrown on shore by the tide.
4. The flounder is also well known here, and we have often seen them left on the beach after the departure of the tide. The Indians eat this fish, and think it very fine. These several species of fish are the same with those on the Atlantic coast.
5. The common salmon and red char are the inhabitants of both the sea and rivers; the former are usually the largest, and weigh from five to fifteen pounds: they extend themselves into all the rivers and little creeks on this side of the continent, and to them the natives are much indebted for their subsistence: the body of the fish is from two and an half to three feet long, and proportionably broad: it is covered with imbricated scales, of a moderate size, and gills: the eye is large, and the iris of a silvery colour: the pupil is black, the rostrum or nose extends beyond the under jaw, and both jaws are armed with a single series of long teeth, which are subulate and inflected near the extremities of the jaws, where they are also more closely arranged: they have some sharp teeth of smaller size, and some sharp points placed on the tongue, which is thick and fleshy: the fins of the back are two; the first is placed nearer the head than the ventral fins, and has several rays: the second is placed far back, near the tail, and has no rays. The flesh of this fish is, when in order, of a deep flesh-coloured red, and every shade from that to an orange yellow: when very meagre it is almost white: the roes of this fish are in high estimation among the natives, who dry them in the sun, and preserve them for a great length of time: they are of the size of a small pea, nearly transparent, and of a reddish yellow cast; they resemble very much, at a little distance, our common garden currants, but are more yellow. Both the fins and belly of this fish are sometimes red, particularly the male: the red char are rather broader, in proportion to their length, than the common salmon: the scales are also imbricated, but rather larger; the rostrum exceeds the under jaw more, and the teeth are neither so large or so numerous as those of the salmon: some of them are almost entirely red on the belly and sides; others are much more white than the salmon, and none of them are variegated with the dark spots which mark the body of the other: their flesh, roes, and every other particular, with regard to the form, is that of the salmon.
6. Of the salmon trout, we observe two species, differing only in colour; they are seldom more than two feet in length, and narrow in proportion to their length, much more so than the salmon or red char. The jaws are nearly of the same length, and are furnished with a single series of small subulate straight teeth, not so long nor as large as those of the salmon. The mouth is wide, and the tongue is also furnished with some teeth: the fins are placed much like those of the salmon. At the great falls we found this fish of a silvery white colour on the belly and sides, and a bluish light brown on the back and head; the second species is of a dark colour on its back, and its sides and belly are yellow, with transverse stripes of dark brown; sometimes a little red is intermixed with these colours on the belly and sides towards the head. The eye, flesh, and roe, are like those described of the salmon: the white species found below the falls, were in excellent order, when the salmon were entirely out of season and not fit for use. They associate with the red char, in little rivulets and creeks: the Indians say that the salmon begin to run early in May. The white salmon trout is about two feet and eight inches long, and weighs ten pounds: the eye is moderately large, the pupil black, with a small admixture of yellow, and iris of a silvery white, and a little turbid near its border with a yellowish brown. The fins are small in proportion to the fish; are bony but not pointed, except the tail and back fins, which are pointed a little: the prime back fin and ventral ones contain each ten rays, those of the gills thirteen, that of the tail twelve, and the small fin placed near and above the tail has no bony rays, but is a tough flexible substance, covered with smooth skin. It is thicker in proportion to its width than the salmon: the tongue is thick and firm, beset on each border with small subulate teeth, in a single series: the teeth and the mouth are as before described. Neither this fish nor the salmon are caught with the hook, nor do we know on what they feed.
7. The mountain or speckled trout are found in the waters of the Columbia within the mountains: they are the same with those found in the upper part of the Missouri, but are not so abundant in the Columbia as on that river. We never saw this fish below the mountains, but from the transparency and coldness of the Kooskooskee, we should not doubt of its existence in that stream as low as its junction with the southeast branch of the Columbia.
8. The bottlenose is the same with that before mentioned on the Missouri, and is found exclusively within the mountains.
Of shell fish we observe the clam, periwinkle, common muscle, the cockle, and a species with a circular flat shell. The clam of this coast are very small; the shell consists of two valves, which open with hinges: the shell is smooth, thin, of an oval form like that of the common muscle, and of sky-blue colour. It is about one and a half inches in length and hangs in clusters to the moss of the rocks: the natives sometimes eat them. The periwinkle both of the river and the ocean, are similar to those found in the same situation on the Atlantic coast. The common muscle of the river are also the same with those on the rivers of the Atlantic coast: the cockle is small, and resembles much that of the Atlantic: there is also an animal that inhabits a shell perfectly circular, about three inches in diameter, thin and entire on the margin, convex and smooth on the upper side, plain on the under part and covered with a number of minute capillary fibres, by means of which it attaches itself to the sides of the rocks: the shell is thin, and consists of one valve; a small circular aperture is formed in the centre of the under shell: the animal is soft and boneless.
The pellucid substance and fuci. The pellucid jelly-like substance, called the sea-nettle, is found in great abundance along the strand, where it has been thrown up by the waves and tide: there are two species of the fuci thrown up in that manner: the first species at one extremity consists of a large vesicle or hollow vessel, which will contain from one to two gallons; it is of a conic form, the base of which forms the extreme end, and is convex and globular, bearing at its centre some short, broad, and angular fibres: the substance is about the consistence of the rind of a citron mellon, and three-fourths of an inch thick: the rind is smooth from the small extremity of the cone; a long hollow cylindric and regular tapering tube extends to twenty or thirty feet, and is then terminated with a number of branches, which are flat, half an inch in width, rough, particularly on the edges, where they are furnished with a number of little ovate vesicles or bags of the size of a pigeon’s egg: this plant seems to be calculated to float at each extremity, while the little end of the tube, from whence the branches proceed, lie deepest in the water: the other species seen on the coast towards the Killamucks, resembles a large pumpkin; it is solid, and its specific gravity is greater than the water, though sometimes thrown out by the waves: it is of a yellowish brown colour; the rind smooth, and its consistence is harder than that of the pumpkin; but easily cut with a knife: there are some dark brown fibres, rather harder than any other part, which pass longitudinally through the pulp or fleshy substance which forms the interior of this marine production.