SALMON HATCHERY.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1917, Page 3

SALMON HATCHERY.

A Romance, a Triumph, and a Forecast. (By Bill, in Lyttelton Times.) A silver arrow cleaves the gleaming combers of the thunderous bar, a fullgrown salmon from the mysteries of tbe outer deep, bent upon tbe errand which spells it for the end. In every inch of its burnished length is stored a glorious vitality gained during a tsn months’ sojourn in the o’eab, co/d brinti and it quivers and tingles with exultant life a?, in one graud burst of speed> it leaves behind forever the wheeling gulls and the tang of the foam-flacked oqean, and enters the milky, tasteless waters of the Waitabi. Like some knigbt of old, it may neither eat nor rest until its mission is accomp'iahed. The fatal impulses of instinct drive it ever onward and upward. If it be one of the first run of the stronger fish, it will rot halt, until it reaches the ice-cold waters of the narrow rockwalled strxams ihat gush down rugged, sunlees chasms from tbe snow peeks of the Sot thero Alp*, fighty or ninety miles from tha s=a. If it be a straggler, it will rest, etch x da\ a few miles farther up, in srme still pool. As the last atom of talt exades from beneath its scales under tbe tireless swing of its powerful tail, there come to the salmon thoso wistful “fey” mcmen's that cause it to gambol upon the eurface, testing its strength, as it, were, for the ordeal before it. Day and night it pursues its destiny. Tbe burnished silver uim:tur Uses its biilliancy, ihsn fade . The skin fast changes from

a Bteel-blue to a greyish green. The passage of tbali.ow ripples while conquering mill-rhca 6wift, soon commence to leave a rauik. The males lose their cnlourirg eoon?r than the femsles, for tbe mutiig is all done in ireah water. CEASELESS BATTLES

Bat lea royal pre the order of the day. From a greyish greer the male changes to a rusty black, mottLd aDd blotched with put pie wheals His fins wear down, h s nose becomes 6kim.ed. He is bat a wreck, a travesty of tbe noble fresh-run salmon. But this is not enough. By uow h 9 has reachtdthe spawnieg grounds, where constant battles are ia progress for coveiel

spots. Wherever he and his newly acquired mats choose to commero work they must fight every pair of fish that pa?B that way, for by now the majjrity are ne rly "ripe” and all are anxious to complete their ‘ redds,” as the spawning teds are called, before their str6ug‘b 'eaves them. A fair cm rent to the side of the main stream is the spot usually chosen, but towards the end of the season the task is so great that selmon may be seen spawning everywhere across the stream.

PREPARING THE REDD Aided by the current, the pair began to move the stones, chiefly with tbe'r noses ar.d anal fins. All large stones ate movfd downwards and the g eyel pushed aodaiouted hack a hollow a yard or more long, deep at the uppßr eud and generally sh*-l!ow-

ing downstream. For days the fast weakening fish iabonr at this until they become mere shadows, Tnß firiei gravel is worked into a bed at the upper deeper end of toe hole upon which iho female deposits her ova. The eggs are then 'fertilised by the molp, and the worn and bieedirg fkh proceed to work down first of all a layer of gravel to cover the eggs, and then enough b*g stones u» re tore the river bod. to its former level. Over a foot of shingle is often u=ed to cover ibo eggs. The *' spent ” salmon then awaits miserable dta h. Their fins are stumps, their snouts are completely denuded of akin and* often the flesh is worn away to the bone. The males are always partially blinded, often completely so. After a few houre or days they can no longer hold their ilace against the current, cr withstand the attacks of other fish, and so they drift helplessly down, to dia in hundreds on the shingle in shallow parts of the r : ver.