68 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



It lias beeB suggested that along the colder seas of our eastern coast salmon 

 do not remain in the ocean, but ascend the warmer rivers, and consequently do 

 not hang about the rivers' mouths ; while, on the contrary, they behave differently 

 along the Atlantic, or on our southern shores. Thus off the " late " river Fowey, 

 Buckland remarked that " a larger number of salmon than are due leave the sea 

 and play about the mouth of the river. These fish come in from the north, 

 south, east, and west. They are big fish, from 25 lb. to 30 lb. hi weight. They 

 come late in the year. They are vevy fat, and greatly different in every way from 

 the native salmon of the Fowey. In these warmer seas, with abundance of food, 

 these fish may continue in the sea until compelled by the near approach of the 

 reproductive period to ascend rivers towards their spawning beds, or they may be 

 fish which are sterile for the season." None seem to have been examined on this 

 point, and only vague surmises have been offered. 



The evidence taken in 182J< went to show that in Scotland, as in the Tay, the 

 salmon were more abundant in diy seasons along the shore and in the estuaries, 

 but in rivers they abound most in wet seasons. For in dry seasons the rivers are 

 smaller in size irrespective of their being too heated to retain them in health. 



It has long been a vexed question as to the manner in which salmon enter 

 estuaries and ascend rivers on their arrival from the sea, and although doubtless 

 local circumstances may occasion certain differences, still the mode of migration 

 would probably in all places be somewhat similar were it unchecked. Mackenzie 

 remarked of the Scottish rivers that the " salmon proceed with the flood tide, and 

 rest during the ebb in eddies and in easy water, hence great numbers are always 

 caught in "the flood traps of the stake nets placed in their course, while compai-a- 

 tively few are got in the ebb traps. If the ebb sets in, and the water becomes 

 shallow from the receding of the tide, they drop down with the tide into deeper 

 water, until the return of the flood tide enables them to continue their course, and 

 in this dropping down some fall within the range and are caught in the ebb traps 

 of the engines in question ; but it is in the summer season, in dry weather, that 

 by far the greatest number are so caught." At this period the water in the rivers 

 is so low that they swim about with the tide, awaiting a flood. 



Admitting that the foregoing distinctly proves that in some localities, at least, 

 lai'ge numbers of fish ascend with the flood tide, it does not disprove that a great 

 many also descend with the ebb, and that in times or places when the very low 

 condition of the water could hardly be deemed a sufficient cause to obstruct ascent. 

 In the Severn, in the stretch of tidal water from Newnham to the railway bridge, 

 there are about seven sets of puts and putchers on the right bank, all being fixed 

 with their mouths up stream. On May 26th, 1885, I visited two of these sets of 

 engines, and saw seven fish taken, all with their heads fixed in the puts and 

 directed doivn stream, and when captured they must have been descending the 

 river with the ebb tide. The lave-net fishermen carry on their occupation during 

 the ebb tide, more especially in the slack water, rendering it evident that in this 

 river these fish both ascend and descend with the tides.* 



In the Severn these fish are observed to swim up with the tide, Avhich regulates 

 their pace, as they rarely get in advance of it, and follow a fixed track, probably 

 the channel of the river ; but as the tide turns they leave the track by which they 

 ascended, and are found in the shallows. If once disturbed or frightened from 

 their regular course, they would appear to be slow to again return to it ; thus 

 Mr. Willis-Bund remarked that there used to be a good fishery just above the place 

 where the tunnel passes under the river Severn. In consequence of the boring 

 operations, chiefly the blasting, the fish have left that part of the river, and the 

 fishery is almost worthless ; and although the blasting has now (October, 1885) 

 ceased for some time, the fish do not return. In the McCloud River the blasting 

 operations of the Constructive Corps of the Central Pacific Railway Company 



* Three views concerning these migrations were held at a meeting of the Dee Conservators at 

 Chester in December, 188-1 :— (1) That sahnon run up with the flood tide ; (2) That they rest 

 during the flood tide, and run up with the ebb; (3) That they allow themselves to be carried up 

 with the stream of the flood-tide, with their heads towards the sea, and that when the tide begins 

 to ebb they turn, and continue their upward course against it, 



