The Alaska daily empire., 1920-11-10
LIFE HISTORY OF
 SALMON AND FRY
Treatise on Interesting Sub- ject by Superintendent
 Of Hatcheries.

Treating on the menace of the sal mon trout to the salmon industry of Alaska and giving the life history of pair of mating salmon and their young E.. J. Sprague, superintendent of the Territorial hatcheries, has con tributed an article to The Empire. MT. Sprague has made tho study of salmon his life work and the follow ing from his pen can be considered authoritative:
 Observations on the salmon trout or Dolly Warden in the waters of Al aska for the past five years and the damage that they do, have brought forth some interesting facts. Ex- periments carried on by means of racks placed across various salmon streams including Duck, Knutson Aux Lake Creek and Admiralty Creek have shown that salmon trout enter the streams in large numbers with the spawning salmon and take a heavy toll of salmon eggs.
 Although this fact is very evident ho ohC but o lIOoO ODSCiNCl iiho otSH that immutable law of nature, the law of compensation and balance, whereby, although the salmon trodt eat the salmon eggs and young sal mon, the salmon fry of the previous year feed on the eggs and young of continual struggle in the watery elements for the survival of the fit test. There can be no doubt, how ever, that in the struggle, the salmon trout so far has had the best of it with about ten thousand salmon de-
 History of Salmon
 Let us now take observations of the spawning of. a pair of salmon and the truly wonderful instinct of the fish for the protection and future food supply of it's progeny.
 It will be recalled that the water ;n our salmon streams this year was at an exceedingly low stage until the heavy fall of rain of July 25 On this date MT. and Mrs. Salmon were able to make their way up stream to a side slough where they built their nest in the gravel in very shallow water This nest was about three feet in diameter and fifteen to eighteen inches in depth and in it the eggs were deposited On the ninth day after the eggs were deposited, both the parent fish died and their bodies remained partly submerged in the spawning bed among the gravel.
 Eggs In the Gravel
 This part of the stream went dry shortly after the death of the parent fish but the eggs lived in the moist Never in state of natural matching are the young salmon seen in what IS known to fish culturi5ts or hatch cry men as the food sac stage. Ma ture, by wise provision, demands that they be protected during this stage of development. They are giy. en the power of working themselves up through the sand and gravel only after they have absorbed their food sac. This is no doubt done for their protection at the most vital point of their existence for the future supply of our salmon.
 Coming Out of Gravel
 Afterward, the fry work themselves up through the gravel by a flaming process of the pectoral fin to the surface, regardless to what depth of sand they arc buried in. They have a wonderful vitality for their size and lie first thing they do after coming out through the sand is to feed on the bodies of their parent fish. By this time the parent salmon have passed through process in nature s own laboratory that has caused their dismemberment into small white par ticles resembling corn meal.
 Natures Law
 Does it not stand to reason that in the late fall months this is the only available food left for the young salmon? After ice conditions enter the streams, bugs, flies and various crustaceous foods are not to be found. Most of our salmon species spawn in the Fall months and as the water grows colder, the eggs require a matching period of from