Trout and Salmon 187 



to spawn and die. The king mature anywhere between the 

 second and sixth year, by far the greater number in the 

 fourth and fifth years. The other species, including the steel- 

 head, may be anywhere from two to five years old at ma- 

 turity. 



On entering fresh water they all cease to feed. Various 

 explanations for this have been offered: that they have 

 other things on their minds; that they are not equipped to 

 eat the food available in fresh water, any more than a St. 

 Bernard dog is equipped to catch micej that their digestive 

 juices cease to function and their stomachs shrink into hard 

 little shells. This last change undoubtedly takes place, but 

 it may be effect rather than cause. Why salo/r and the steel- 

 head and some of the Pacific salmons none the less rise to the 

 angler's fly is a question which we shall avoid discussing 

 here on the ground that it has to do with fishing rather 

 than with fish. In any case, most Pacific salmons go in for 

 no such by-play, and thus come to sensible deaths in nets, 

 and get shipped around the world in cans, instead of dying 

 on the end of a sportsman's line and being eaten by his some- 

 what bewildered and supposedly admiring friends. But it 

 must not be forgotten that a small proportion of them do 

 yield to the sport fisherman's lures, both in sea and river, 

 and escape the can in this way. 



From the time they enter fresh water until they spawn, 

 the fish must live on the reserves accumulated in earlier 

 years in the form of fat and muscle. These reserves must 

 not only provide the material for the eggs and sperm, which 

 are largely manufactured after entering fresh water, but also 

 must furnish the energy to carry the fish to the spawning 

 grounds. The Atlantic salmon in America usually have a 

 comparatively short journey, but in such a river as the Rhine 

 they may spend as much as a whole year on the trip — with- 

 out a bite to eat! It has been calculated that they lose, in 



