New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-06-09
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THr long held and only reoentl
jected theory, that tho shoals q fishes
moved ia avast mass along the coast
lending on detachme nts into each river
90 they passed Its mouth, - q be attrib-
uted TO John Gilpin and some other
authors, who have written lovingly on
the subject. The recent careful hives
legations q naturalists indicate that the
|anadromous fishes, those entering the
rivers and bodies Of fresh water from
the sea, do not have an extended range
In the ocean, and that each rivers COL
ony remains, alter returning, 81 the.
deep waters opposite their river.
The motive for the movement Of these
shoals Of anadr omons fishes, or rather
how It Is melted, has scarcely been
explained. The life Of the fishes has
always been 9 mystery. Il Is not
search for food, IS they do not eat
while in fresh water; the opening Of
hundreds Of stomachs will fail to find
food present. Il is an easy disposal Of
the question as to. how each colony
recognizes its native river to say that
g it Is instructive. y So it Is, also, when
the butchers horse recognizes the
familiar gates but we have some evil
dence as to what senses he uses. The
fishes, probably, prompted by function
al disturbance, from the tumid ovaries
and spermaries, are melted to move
ment. The courses Of the sea, un-
marked 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 crab
to the shell of the natica. The latter
goes to hide its sensitive body, with an
apparent nervous trepidation at It's nm
protected condition. The former, with
an uneasiness Of body from the func-
tional changes Il Is undergoing, is
impelled to activity. The transmitted
habit Of ascending the stream is, as it
were, blended and alleged with the
substance of the nerves, and aroused
by its condition, carries it, without Soon-
scious purpose, into the river Of It's
progenit0rs and it's own. The i'm
pulses of the fish are only in q slightly
more complicated series than those
I0f the crab. That it should be the in
stinct for specific stream, established
through Inheritance of many genera
tons, is easier to understand than that
it is q sort Of memory of the place of
its immature life, as the theory of fish
culture makes it, and as observation
seems to sustain. In the waters Of the
Delaware, where there were no salmon
originally, the young salmon placed in
Bushkill Greek returned after five years,
and were taken, not only in the Della
uyO QSu0pp n,1t %ln Ia, z.
the neighborhood of Bushkill Creek. Il
is not essential that all the fishes should
have this impelling influence, whatever
it may be, as like gregarious 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 nosing about the coast, or tast-
ing the streams, until It recognizes its
own. The convexity Of the cornea must
afford the fishes q very limited range of
vision. The supposed dullness of the
sense Of smell and of taste in fishes
might alone dispose of the suggestion
that these are employed. The follow
ing occurrence, however, would seem to
decide to the contrary. The Russian
River, emptying into the Pacific, north
of San Francisco, had it's mouth entirely
closed BY the waves during 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 q frenzied
advance over shoals, rapids, and cas-
cades, far into thin streams and brooks,
where they arrive battered and weary,
to accomplish their exhaustive produc-
tive labors, and drop back, the sport of
the current, dead and dying toward the
sea.-Janaes W. Miner, IN Harper's
Magazine tor. May.