FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



125 



live scattered for the most part. But at least 

 one case has come to our notice of a school seen, 

 and some of them netted. 62 While salmon often 

 leap in the esturaries on their return journey 

 and in the rivers, we have never heard of one 

 doing so at sea. And they keep so constantly 

 to the mid-depths that they are seldom seen at 

 the surface, except in the estuaries. But this 

 rule has its exceptions, for the school mentioned 

 above was sighted at the surface, where they were 

 mistaken for pollock. On the other hand, there 

 is no reason to suppose that many of the Gulf of 

 Maine salmon descend to any great depth, winter 

 or summer. The weirs, gill nets, and other gear 

 that yield so many in various regions, are all 

 operated in rather shoal water (the Baltic hook- 

 and-line-fishery is carried on at about 1 % fathoms) . 

 Dr. Huntsman informs us that salmon are taken 

 on hand lines in mid-winter in the Bay of Fundy. 

 They are caught occasionally on long lines in the 

 Gulf, and otter trawlers get stray salmon on the 

 offshore Banks (p. 126), proof that at least some 

 may go as deep as 50 fathoms or so, while diet 

 (p. 124) proves that they sometimes feed near 

 bottom if not actually on it. 



General range. — Coastal waters of both sides 

 of the North Atlantic, entering rivers to spawn. 

 On the European side its range extends northward 

 well within the Arctic Circle; southward to the 

 Mifio River, at the boundary between Spain 

 and Northern Portugal, perhaps with a few 

 reaching the Duero River, midway of Portugal. 63 

 It occurs in a few rivers in western Greenland. 64 

 On the American side salmon ran up all suitable 

 rivers, formerly, from northeastern Labrador 

 to the Housatonic emptying into Long Island 

 Sound; perhaps the Hudson also. The northern 

 limit of the commercial fishery for it on the 

 American side is only about latitude 54° N. 

 (Indian Harbor, north shore of Hamilton Inlet). 

 And while it is known to range to Hudson Strait, 66 

 reports of it from stream mouths northward from 

 Hamilton Inlet seem often to have been based 



* Kendall. Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 9, No. 1, 1935, p. 32. 



" This is the southern European limit given by Berg (Zoogeographies. 

 vol. 1, Pt. 2, 1932, p. 112. 



" Jensen, Fauna of Greenland, vol. 1, Pt. 3, Fishes, 192S, pp. 3 and 4, Copen- 

 hagen. 



" Vladykov (Contrib. Canad. Biol., N. Sor., vol. 8, No. 2, 1933, p. 18, 

 fig. 1) shows a locality record near Fort Chimo, and there are salmon In the 

 rivers of the eastern part of Ungava Bay. 



on the sea run form of the Arctic charr Salvelinus 

 alpinus, which also grows large in the sea. 66 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — When the 

 white man first came to New England and to the 

 Maritime Provinces, he found salmon in every 

 large stream not barred by impassable falls, 

 from Cape Sable to Cape Cod; i. e., in all the Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick Rivers, tributary 

 either to the open Gulf of Maine or to the Bay 

 of Fundy, and in the following rivers in New 

 England: St. Croix, Dennys, Orange, East 

 Machias, Pleasant, Narraguagus, Union, Penob- 

 scot, St. George, Medomak, Sheepscot, Andro- 

 scoggin, Kennebec, Royal, Presumpscot, Saco, 

 Mausam, Piscataqua, and Merrimac. 67 One New 

 England river, however, after another was so 

 obstructed by dams after the beginning of the 

 past century, that salmon regularly entered only 

 the St. Croix, Dennys, East Machias, Machias, 

 Penobscot, Sheepscot, Kennebec, and Andro- 

 scoggin by the 1880's. The Kennebec was still 

 an important salmon river as late as 1895. But 

 by 1925 the Dennys and the Penobscot alone, 

 of the rivers of Maine, saw regular runs, with a few 

 fish in the St. Croix where pollution by sawdust 

 was not as bad then as it had been, perhaps with 

 an occasional fish in other streams. 



The fate of the salmon in the Merrimac M typi- 

 fies its history in the rivers from which it is now 

 barred. Salmon spawned plentifully in the upper 

 tributaries, especially in the Pemigewasset, as late 

 as 1793 (in 1790 the run was so abundant in the 

 lower river that 60 to 100 a day was the usual catch 

 with a 90-yard seine near the mouth at Amesbury) , 

 but the completion of the dam at Lawrence in 1847 

 completely barred the upper reaches of the river. 

 For some years thereafter salmon congregated 

 below the Lawrence dam in spring and summer, 

 vainly endeavoring to ascend, but there has beeu 

 no run of salmon in the upper Merrimac since 1859 

 or 1860, when the last salmon hatched above the 

 dam had lived its span of life, nor have any 

 spawned there since then with the possible excep- 

 tion of a few that have been lifted over the dam by 

 hand. 



* Blair (Res. Bull. 12, Dept. Nat. Resources Newfoundland, 1943, pp. 5-17) 

 gives a detailed account of the salmon rivers of the outer Labrador coast, 

 Strait of Belle Isle to Hamilton Inlet. 



■ Atkins (1887, Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, p. 679) has collected much 

 Information on the local history of salmon in northern New England. 



" Lyman and Reed, Kept. Comm. Fish. Massachusetts (1865) 1866, 

 Senate Doc. 8, pp. 36-41. 



