(34 PAIRING OF SALMON. 



Yet to show how difficult it is to ascertain whe- 

 ther these fish actually pair or not, I have been 

 made acquainted with the following fact. A 

 spearer, last autumn, standing in about three feet 

 of water, secreted behind the artificial fence be- 

 fore described, saw a female at work, that is, 

 grubbing up a pit in the sand for her pea. Expe- 

 rience told him that the male, to use the very 

 language in which the anecdote was related to me, 

 like dogs after a bitch, would soon follow her. He 

 was not disappointed, for this man speared seven- 

 teen males in one day, and another man speared 

 eleven on the same day at the same place ; and then, 

 with sterling genuine human gratitude, which is 

 said to be " a vice peculiar to human nature," they 

 speared their benefactress also. I have not the 

 smallest doubt of the truth of this story as to the 

 destructive part of it, because I have been told 

 the names of the men engaged in it j but, subject 

 to what has been just observed, and to what others 

 may know upon the subject, I must leave the pub- 

 lic to determine this question. It is not, however, 

 certain that these male fish were after the same 

 female, they might be in quest of others, and 

 therefore it is no proof that they do not pair ; 

 certain, however, it is, that whether they pair or 

 whether they do not, it is a most impolitic and 

 injurious practice to spear the males and send away 

 the females to procreate by themselves ; and it is both 

 cruel and brutal to spear them at all in the breed- 



