The first impulse is to resist this objectionable intrusion, so the angry sturgeon comes up to see what it all means: this curiosity is generally repaid by having a second spear sent crashing into him. He then takes a header, seeking safety in flight, and the real excitement commences. With might and main the bowman plies the paddles, and the spearman pays out line, the canoe flying through the water. The slightest tangle, the least hitch, and over it goes; it becomes, in fact, a sheer trial of paddle _versus_ fin. Twist and turn as the sturgeon may, all the canoes are with him: he flings himself out of the water, dashes through it, under it, and skims along the surface; but all is vain—the canoes and their dusky oarsmen follow all his efforts to escape as a cat follows a mouse.
Gradually the sturgeon grows sulky and tired, obstinately floating on the surface. The savage knows he is not vanquished, but only biding a chance for revenge; so he shortens up the line, and gathers quietly on upon him, to get another spear in. It is done—and down viciously dives the sturgeon; but pain and weariness begin to tell, the struggles grow weaker and weaker, as life ebbs slowly away, until the mighty armour-plated monarch of the river yields himself a captive to the dusky native in his frail canoe.
THE CLAM.—Amongst the edible shellfish found on the coasts of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, the Great Clam, as it is there styled (_Lutraria maxima_), or the Otter-shell of conchologists, is by far the most valuable. Clams are one of the staple articles of winter food on which all Indian tribes in a great measure depend who inhabit the north-west coast of America. The clam to the Indians is a sort of molluscous cereal, that they gather and garner during the summer months; and an outline sketch of this giant bivalve’s habits and style of living, how captured, and what becomes of it after being made a prisoner, may be interesting; its habits, and the uses to which, if not designed, it is at least appropriated, being generally less known than its minute anatomy. Clams attain an immense size; I have measured shells eight inches from the hinge to the edge of the valve. We used them as soap-dishes at our headquarters on Vancouver Island.