TIME WHEN FEESH-EUN FISH .VKE CAUGHT. 307 



SPUING OR EAELYRUN SALMON 



Ai'e a class of ux3-ranniug salmon, the natural liistory of: 

 which has hitherto been a great puzzle to all observers. 

 I mean the clean-scaled, well-developed, fat fish, tliat 

 run up some rivers in the months of February and 

 March ; and I believe that if some of our large rivers 

 were fairly tested, this class of fish would be found to be 

 present even as early as December and January. The 

 large Dutch fish which come to the London markets are 

 good examples of these early fish ; so early as the end 

 of November every year, fresh-run fine fish, from SOlbs. 

 in weight downwards, are to be seen in the London fish- 

 mongers' shops, and they continue to be sent for many 

 weeks. Casts of the milt and ova of many of these fish 

 are in my museum, and they form curious contrasts, as 

 regards size and development, to the milts and roes of 

 English fish at the same period of the year. 



Li England these fresh-run fish are caught in February 

 and March, and in their upward progress they cross the 

 paths of the great majority of their brethren who are 

 coming down as kelts. 



I have heard of an instance where, at one haul of the 

 net in the tideway, a fisherman caught a female salmon 

 full of ova, secondly, a fresh-run fish, and, thirdly, a kelt. 

 My explanation of this fact is, that the female fish was 

 a very late spawner, that the fresh-run fish was a 

 specimen of the class I am about to describe, and that 

 the kelt was going down stream in the proper course of 

 things. 



Having examined the anatomical conditions of 



several of these clean-run spring fish, and at the same 



ime carefully considered this most difficult subject in 



