most palatable and nutritive species of fish known. Fullgrown Chinooks reach a weight averaging from 25 to 50 pounds, while occasionally one is caught weighing 75 pounds or more. The Chinook salmon is probably the highest development in the great family of fishes. Its beauty, strength, CHINOOK SALMON and marvelous intelligence, or instinct, make the salmon a creature of increasing interest and wonder. The flesh is a pinkish red in color, rich in oils, and it appeals favorably to the taste of all people of all climes. This species of salmon is considered a delicacy in the royal palaces of Europe; and because of its excellence, it is commonly known as the Royal Chinook.
Habits of the Chinook Salmon. When three or four years old, Chinook salmon—which, after their first year pass their lives in salt water—return to a fresh-water stream, usually the one in which they were hatched. They ascend the rivers to their cold, clear sources, high among the mountains. After fanning out a small depression in the gravel in shallow water—using her tail for this purpose—the female salmon deposits a quantity of eggs, and the milter or male salmon fecundates them. A little above, the salmon fan out a similar hollow, the disturbed gravel covering the eggs. After the spawning is over the parent salmon soon die. In a few weeks the eggs hatch, and the little fry at once become the prey of most other fishes. An average of less than ten per cent of the hatch live to reach salt water, where they are comparatively safe. Under the system of artificial propa- ^
