THE WEST BHOItE.
523
shell it is about an inch long, and carries under iU
body a little round sack, the yolk of the egg it came
from, on which it lives by absorption for about a
month longer, till its mouth is sufficiently complete
to take food and its other organs to dispose of the
food it takes. When first hatched, it is a clumsy
looking and awkwardly moving object, being about as
graceful and efficient in its attempts to swim like a
fish as a human beginner's attempts are to rido a bi.
cycle. After it has lived in its sack a week or two, it
develops a disposition to dive and hide under some
thing, which it docs with a pertinacity which is both
larger fishes above, 8a, like the early Christians la
the Catacombs, it spends a Urge portion, if cot all,
of its early life in or close by the under-world where
it was born. As it gets larger, it ventures out and
takes its chances for life in the world of waters alwte
it, usually, I think, going up some brook or keeping
near some rocks, or close in shore, where it can retreat
to a place of safety when alarmed It fmla now to.
raciously on whatever it can find in the way of small,
er fishes and insets, and other animal foM in the
water, and in a few months, probably not ovrr ill or
seven, it joins the host of its comrades, of about the
at. B i
il !i li
LJi fi :
A mom noil m iii 1 1. ii'HU. f ii r Mtt.-irr ti.t '.?.
characteristic of the falbgrown salmon and prophetic j
of the tenacity of purpose it will show in ascending j
its breeding rivers to spawn. This irresistible in. j
stinct to dive and hide takes it still deqr under the j
gravel and rocks in the bl of the river which formed
its birth-placo, and it stsys here in the crevices of the j
rocks and gravel as snog as possible until the sack of
food which nature started it in life with is gone and
it is obliged to work for a living or starve.
M It would not be safe now for the little, triplets
creature to venture oat of the rocks and gravel where ;
it was bom, for it would undoubtedly pay for its I
raahness by becoming food, while yet alon, fur the j
same site, which are preparing to go in f-a, and form,
leg a school, which without doubt gathers loyrUIs of
recruits a it process, it hastens with all iU tafght
down the stream. It U uv a Uautifal, silvery fihf
from four to sit Inches long, and la a let da;s finds
it-f in the mtlit of the allurements a:. 1 tlaegrs of
the great unknown ocran which it l so egr to nk."
Mr. (I. W. Williams gieg the following kUtmU
leg details as the rru!t of IU bmtnli through a
series of years on the Columlia and Ht-ako rims and
tributaries of tUw streams:
- The spawning grounds of tie Chinook are the
Hcake rlnr, as far as HlAibow falls, a$d its titsia-