ATKINS THE SALMON AND ITS ARTIFICIAL CULTURE. 237 



removed from the brook. At tlie spawning seai!>oii preparations were 

 made to catch them in the brook should they chose to enter it in their 

 search for a spawning-bed. About the 9th of November it was discov- 

 ered that on a gravelly bottom under two feet of water, close by the 

 shore, and within a dozen rods of the outlet of the pond, salmon had 

 been spawning. A net was set here on the 10th, and on the morning 

 of the 11th it caught two male salmon. Another was taken on the 12th, 

 but, though the net was kept in place until the 23d, it took no more 

 males and not a single female. The males taken were thinner than those 

 from our pound in Allamoosook, had less red and more blue in their color, 

 and bore large scars on their sides ; otherwise they appeared to be in 

 good health. This experiment at Craig's Pond showed that salmon can- 

 not be relied upon to enter a small brook in search of a spawning ground 

 when the water of the pond in which they are confined is pure and the 

 bottom is gravelly and clean. In such cases they will laj^ their eggs in 

 still water. 



A third brood of vsalmon, eighteen in number, were placed in Dead 

 Brook, a tributary of Eastern River, entering it several miles lower 

 than Craig's Pond Brook, and accessible from the salmon weirs by pass- 

 ing through only one lock instead of three, as in the former case. Dead 

 Brook is larger than Craig's Pond Brook — barely large enough to drive 

 a saw-mill under a moderate head in spring and fall. In midsummer its 

 head is very small, but it never completely dries up. Its water is less 

 pure and more highl^^ colored than that of Craig's Pond, but not darker 

 than that of common brooks. Where the brook traverses a meadow 

 two barriers were placed across it, making an inclosure about 200 feet 

 long and 30 feet wide, with water 5 feet deep at the time the salmon 

 were pat in, (June 26 and 28,) but falling to less than 3 feet in Septem- 

 ber. Two of the fish died in June, but, so far as could be known, the 

 remaining sixteen lived in good health until October. There were oc- 

 casional freshets that brought down a great deal of mud, but this did 

 no harm. On the 12th of October an extraordinary freshet 'carried 

 away the barriers and let the salmon free. The most of them must 

 have remained in the brook, for quite a number of spawning-nests were 

 discovered after the water subsided in November, but only a single pair 

 of salmon were seen ; these were a mile further up the brook, above some 

 diflBcult falls, lying side by side in the deepest part of a pool, while just 

 below them, on a rapid, was a partially formed nest. The female fish 

 was caught, killed, and carried several miles to the hatching-house, 

 where her eggs were taken and milted. They were not so well fecun- 

 dated as the other lots. I am uncertain what was the reason. The 

 fish was afitiicted with sores and very weak. 



A fourth brood, numbering eleven salmon, were placed in Spofford's 

 Pond, in Bucksport. These were caught in a weir near Bucksport vil- 

 lage, and hauled in a tank of water on a dray one mile to the pond. 

 There was no great expectation of catching many of them, but it was 



