174 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



trout go from tlie seas which surround Icelaud up into fresh water, a& 

 has beeu seen on the coasts ofXorway, Finland, and Spitzbergen. 



It is well known that the salmon go into tresh water solely for the 

 purpose of spawning. For this purpose they come as early as April,, 

 and continue to ascend the streams till August. We do not, however, 

 possess any absolutely reliable information in this regard, and it must 

 be presumed that the ascent of the salmon in the Icelaud waters is very 

 much influenced by the weather. Not much is known as regards the 

 spawning season, but it scarcely comes belore October, although, as has 

 been said above, salmon eggs have been observed in the Hvita in Septem- 

 ber. It is i)0ssible that there is some mistake aboutthis, as probably also 

 with regard to the statement that spawning salmon have been noticed 

 in the mouth of the river. It must be supposed that the salmon eggs 

 found in the mouth of the river, if they really were salmon eggs, were 

 dead eggs, which by floods or in some other way had been carried away 

 from the spawning places. The common peoi)le in Norway also fre- 

 quentl}' cite the presence of eggs in such places in proof of the assertion 

 that the spawning jilaces of the salmon are at the mouth of the river,, 

 or even on the shore; but A. Landmark [the Norwegian inspector of ' 

 flsheriesj states distinctly that such eggs are always dead. 



It is very difficult to obtain any information regarding the spawning 

 season of the fish in the various Iceland waters, because very few Ice- 

 landers have much knowledge of the life of fish, or have any idea of 

 the importance of such knowledge; and from the same causes it is of 

 course still more diflScult to find out how long the young salmon stay in 

 fresh water before thej^ go to the sea. It is of no little importance to 

 obtain some light on this subject, for if the young salmon stay in the 

 rivers for a considerable length of time before they go to sea, they are 

 exposed to the numerous dangers of the Iceland rivers. In Scotland, 

 owing to the favorable conditions of food, salmon develop in from 14 tO' 

 25 months. Landmark thinks that in Norway it takes 12 months longer- 

 than in Scotland ; and that hardly any young salmon in its silver}' 

 traveling dress, which the English call "smolt," goes into the sea before 

 it is two years old or more. I do not put much faith in the various 

 statements regarding this subject which I have heard in Iceland, as I 

 have not met a single Icelander who showed any familiarity with this 

 subject. Thus I have been told that English amateur fishermen have 

 from time to time caught smolts, whi(;h, according to English custom,, 

 they again threw into the water. liut it struck me as very strange 

 that anaong the thousands of fish which passed through my hands in 

 IriSl, I only once found a young salmon (near Laxamyri), and this fish 

 was still in its trout stage. It might be supposed that the young sal- 

 mon of the Iceland streams went to sea at an early age, owing to the 

 lack of food and the unfavorable natural conditions. 



The ai)paratus which the Icelanders use in the fresh- water fisheries- 

 are not of a nature to endanger or exhaust the fisheries, and it certainly 



