Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-19
aow FISH FIND THEIR own RIVERS.

The long-held and only recently rejected
theory, that the shoals OF fishes moved III
a vast mass along the coast, sending of
detachments into each river as they passed
its mouth, is to be attributed to John
Gilpin and some other authors who have
written howingly on the subject. The re-
cent careful Investigations oi naturalsts
indicate that the anadromsus fishes, those
entering the rivers and bodies of fresh
water from the sea, do not have an ex-
tended range in the ocean, and that each
rivers colony remains, after returning, III
the deep waters opposite their river.
The motive for the movement of these
shoals of anadromous fishes, or rather how
it is melted, has scarcely been explained.
The life of the fishes has always been 4
mystery. 1t is not search for food, as
they do not eat while in fresh water the
opening of hundreds of stomachs will fail
to find food present. 1t is an easy disposal
of the question as to how each colony
recognizes its native river to say that 1T
is instructive" So it is, also, when the
butchers horse recognizes the familiar
gates but we have some evidence as to
what senses he uses. The fishes, probably,
prompted by functional disturbance, from
the tumid ovsries and spermaries, are in
cited to movement. The courses of the
sea, unmarked as they are, are, within each
colony's limit, their habitual pathways.
An unerring capacity in the fish for finding
its own river may be no more than that
which guides the hermit-orab to the shell
OF the nd&jco. The latter goes to hide it's
sensitive body, with an apparent nervous
trepidatlon at It's unprotected condition.
The former, with an uneasiness Of body
from the functional changes 1t is undergo
ing, is impelled to activity. The trans
mitted habit of ascending the stream is, as
it were, blended and alleged with the sub
stance OF the nerves, and aroused by its
condition, carries it, without conscious
purpose, into the river Of its progenitors
and it's OVID. The impulses of the fish are
only in slightly more complicated series
than those OF the crab. That it should be
the instinct for a specific stream, estab-
lished through inheritance of many genera
lions, is easier to understand than that 1t
is sort of memory of the place of its i'm
mature life, as the theory OF fish-culture
makes it, and as observation seems to sus-
tain. In the waters of the Delaware,
where there were no salmon originally, the
young salmon placed IN BushklN creek re-
turned after five years, and were taken,
not only insthe Delaware river, but the
larger number in the neighborhOod OF
Bushkill creek. 1t is not essential that all
the fishes should have this impelling infu-
ence, whatever it may be, as like gregari-
Gus mammals and birds they flock together,
following the leadership of whichever for
the time takes it. The idea is suggested
that the senses may be the guiding agent,
that fish goes nosiug along the coast, or
tasting the streams, until 1t recognizes its
own. The convexity of the cornea must
afford the fishes very limited range Of
vision. The supposed dizziness of the
sense of smell and Of taste in fishes might
alone dispose OF the suggestion that these
are employed. The following occurrence,
however, would seem to decide to the con-
trary. The Russian river, emptying into
the Pacific, north of San Francisco, had
its mouth entirely closed by the waves
during a storm. The colony of salmon
made their yearly migration from the deep
waters toward the mouth of the river, and
many OF them raced through the surf, and
landed high and dry on the sand that
walled them out from their native river.
The migration of the salmon into some
of the Pacific rivers is frenzied advance
over shoals, rapids and cascades, far into
thin streams and brooks, where they ar
rive battered and weary, to accomplish
their exhaustive reproductive labors, and
drop back, the sport of the current, dead
and dying, toward the sea- James w.
Miner, in Harper's Magazine.