RAKAIA QUINNAT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 35, 10 August 1934, Page 6

RAKAIA QUINNAT

DEATH-BIRTH RITUAL

THRASHING THE SHINGLE

BIG FISH IN SHALLOWS

Birth and death combine when spawning salmon .follow streams to their shallow limits, .where the great fish is helpless against amphibious destroyers. Mr. Eric.Lowe writes in tho "New Zealand Railways Magazine" of tho quinnat "run in tho Rakaia:—

There, where the waters of the groat river have dwindled to '■ a few shallow 'rivulets', the quiunat arrivo at their journey's end. ' ' :

Into the boulder-streams and into every little crook that runs in from tussock plains of tho wide riverbed, tho'grim,' strong swimmers pass, gliding gracefully through the water barely deep enough to cover them, and ever and anon with a mighty splashing, thumping oyor stretches of "ripple" where you might walk across almost without wetting your feet. BACK TO BIRTHPLACE. To see a big; fifty-pound salmon: thrash its way across thirty yards of shingle, through water six inches dbep, is a sight worth going some distance to see. With half his body clear of the water, a curving jet rising from the pointed head, and: the powerful tail flailing-up a smother of water and gravel in his wake, this game fighter of the sea, urged on by that mysterious instinct which ib beyond our human powers of comprehension, passes on to the same spawning ground from which he himself, as a tiny smolt, years ago drifted down,to the great ocean. For some weeks the salmon remain in the shallow Waters. While camped in the gorge, I have seen them by night lying three and four abreast in the creeks, like destroyers moored side by, side. Every now and again the stillness of the gorge darkness is broken by a sudden loud flapping and splashing as a monster fish, or half a dozen together, smash through a ripple to. a favoured ground further upstream/ What proportion of tho "run" survive the fatigue and stress of \hc journey, to return to the sea; is doubtful.. Certain it is that every year great numbers leave' their bones far up in tho back country. ' When the salmon first arrive at the spawning ground they are usually in good condition, despite the long journey through tho -'swift and turbulent Rakaia. But a feW wooks in the shallow streams leaves its mark, and a ter riblo one it is, on tho graceful green and grey squadrons. CHANGE AND DECAY. Largo whitish patches.appear on the side of the fish, the skin becomes slimy,1 the belly chafed and discoloured by friction on the shingle.; Tragic'1 indeed is the last ; stage, in the life-cycle of the lordly quinnat. The once shapely streamlined head assumes a horrible pike-like appearance, with rows of sharp teeth protruding from the wolfish jaws. Gone is the comely plumpness of a month ago, and the mottled, disfigured razor-back, swims '■ sluggishly to and fro. Often the great driuble fin of the tail is almost entirely gone, literally rubbed away in rooting and tearing into the. sharp fine shingle beds, preparing for the laying of. tho.ova and covering it up afterwards.. Soon every shallow ripple, every little, sandy beach in the stream has Us quota of dead and. dying salmon,! grotesque caricatures, of the swift and graceful host which a few,shont months •ago mustered, at-the far-off.rivbr-mouth. •: But" the main purpose of their'"life1 has been accomplished. These pitiful wrecks, whose still or feebly struggling forms cumber the shallows, have nnblv carried out the task assigned them by Nature, and the seed which ■Oinll norpetunte thpir species liop safe from ocpnn foes bonrath the gritty Single which shall b« their' cradlp find in later years their grave, far inland in flic <<harlfiw<i -nf tho great mountains.