32 The Salmon 



The history of these fish, which will be five years old in March, is 

 now quite clear. Out of over a thousand fish which I examined 

 during the last two weeks of February, all, with the exception of 

 about ten per cent, which had spawned, were of the same age, viz. 

 five years, and their average weight was about 20 Ibs. The one 

 caught on i3th February 1908, weighing 38^ Ibs., belongs to the same 

 run and is of the same age, so that up to I5th February 1908 we have 

 these spring fish on their first return from the sea, weighing from 13 



FIG. 27. Mark of i8|-lb. Salmon shown, caught iSth July 1907. Marked as Smolt May 1905. 



to 38^7 Ibs. The last-mentioned weight is no doubt exceptional. The 

 wired fish, 35 Ibs. in weight, caught at Almond Mouth station on 

 3ist March 1908, is the largest marked fish we have got. It 

 had been in the sea within a month of three years, and had not 

 spawned. (See illustration of the fish and of its scale, Figs. 32, 80.) 

 It was therefore of the same age as the others already mentioned, 

 viz. five years. 



Although the marking of these smolts and the capture of so many 

 of them has added much to our knowledge, and cleared up many 

 matters of which little was known, something yet requires to be done 

 in marking fish from the different runs in order to be able to tell 



