THE SALMON. 



453 



one hundred and ten fish, averaging more than twenty-two pounds. This 

 was by Mr. Thomas Reynolds, who caught in the same river a fish of 

 forty-seven pounds, the largest ever killed in Gaspe with a fly. In the 

 Penobscot forty-pounders have occasionally been taken, but not more than 

 one out of a thousand weighs thirty, and the common size is from ten to 

 twelve pounds. A fish two feet long would weigh about six pounds ; one 

 of thirty inches, nine or ten ; one of three feet, sixteen to seventeen ; and 

 one four feet long, nearly fifty. A score of twenty-two day's fishing, with 

 four rods, in the Godbout, in June and July, 1865, foots up four hundred 

 and seventy-eight fish, averaging nine and three-quarters pounds. 



In Great Britain, by systematic culture and protection, the salmon fishery 

 has been made one of the most important aquatic industries. The rental of 

 the privileges on three salmon rivers, the Tay, the Spey, and the Tweed, 

 amounted in 1873 to nearly $200,000; and in this year 3,800,000 pounds 

 of salmon, worth at least $1,350,000 were brought to London markets, 

 2,580,000 pounds coming from Scotland alone. 



The salmon rivers of North America may be made to yield a harvest 

 much richer than this ; those of Maine alone are probably as numerous 

 and well adapted for the purpose as those of Scotland, which are valued 

 at ^£250,000 a year, those of England being placed at ^100,000, and of 

 Ireland at ^400,000. 



Walton and all his disciples have called the Salmon the "King of Fresh 

 Water Fishes." Whole libraries have been written, about his Majesty, 

 and the adventures of the regicides who show their admiration of him by 

 killing him as often as they can. Salmon fishery, from the technical stand- 

 point, may not here be discussed, and the reader is respectfully referred to 

 the writings of Hallock, Scrope Roosevelt, Harris, Dawson, Herbert, 

 Pennell, Francis and Buckland, and others, mighty with the rod and facile 

 with the pen. 



