THE SALMON. 



445 



eray, in "The Virginians," made George Esmond claim Salmon, shad, 

 and rock-fish among the game creatures of Westmoreland county, Va., and 

 nearly permitted him to profane Madame Esmond's hospitable mansion by 

 quarrelling over the matter with young Colonel Washington, her guest. 



Was the great novelist a prophet? In May, 1878, several fine Sal- 

 mon were taken in the Susquehanna, after having coasted along more than 

 one hundred miles of the Old Dominion shore. 



At least half of the Salmon's life is spent in the ocean. " He is ever 

 bred in the fresh rivers," said Walton, " and never grows big but in the 

 sea." " He has (like some persons of honor and riches, which have both 

 their winter and summer houses) this fresh water for summer and the salt 

 water for winter to spend his life in." Most of his tribe, however, are 

 peculiarly fresh-water fishes, though several share his sea-dwelling habit, 

 and others, like the Brook-trout, descend into salt water, when not pre- 

 vented by barriers of temperature. All of the family run into very shoal 

 water, and usually to the sources of streams, to deposit their eggs, and all 

 of them seek food and cool temperatures in the largest and deepest bodies 

 of water accessible. I am inclined to the view that the natural habitat of 

 the Salmon is in the fresh waters, the more so since there are so many in- 

 stances — such as that of the Stormontfield Ponds in England— where it has 

 been confined for years in lakes without apparent detriment. The " Land- 

 locked " or " Fresh-water" Salmon, known also in the Saguenay region 

 as " Winninish," in the Shubenacadie and other rivers of Western Nova 

 Scotia as the " Grayling," and in different parts of Maine as " Schoodic 

 Trout," " Sebago Trout," or " Dwarf Salmon," probably never visit salt 

 water, finding ample food and exercise in the lakes and large rivers. In 

 certain regions in Maine and New Brunswick their access to salt water is cut 

 off by dams, and some investigators have claimed that Land-locked Salmon 

 did not exist there until these obstructions were built, some fifty years ago. 

 This hypothesis, however, is not necessary, for in the Saguenay the Winni- 

 nish has easy, unobstructed access to the sea. The Salmon of Lake On- 

 tario and its tributaries are not thought to enter salt water, and there are 

 similar instances of land-locking in the lakes of Northern Sweden. In 

 the Maine lakes Salmon feed on minnows and other small fishes. The 

 Salmon while it remains in the sea or in the brackish estuaries takes par- 

 ticular delight in feeding on crustaceans and their eggs, small shrimps, 

 and young crabs. When in the rivers they eat but little, though they are 



