482 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



(uniform in species) sometimes found in a single fish suggests that it might have 

 snapped at swarms in the air (jj). 



Because adults do not feed while they are in fresh water and have usually ceased 

 feeding by the time they reach inshore waters, where most of them are caught com- 

 mercially, comparatively little is known about what they eat when they actively feed at 

 sea. Among the food items most commonly mentioned are herring, capelin, and sand 

 launce; small mackerel are also frequently mentioned. 



Many of those taken in traps inshore are empty, probably because they share 

 with many other fishes the habit of disgorging their food out of fright, or digesting 

 it before they are removed from the traps (<S^: 165-166). In spite of this, there are 

 numerous records of the Atlantic Salmon's diet inshore, where they have been re- 

 ported as preying on small fishes of various kinds as well as crustaceans. For example, 

 many of those from the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, opened by Comeau, 

 contained herring, small mackerel, and sculpins (cottids), and some had gorged on 

 capelin (j<^: 184—188). Kendall found alewives {Pomolobus) in specimens from the St. 

 John River, New Brunswick, and smelts in Penobscot River fish {8y: 32, 34). Ungava 

 Bay specimens have contained Arctic cod (Boreogadus saidd) and sculpins (jp). 



Stomachs of this species from off Norway are sometimes packed full of herring; 

 these as well as launce are common food in the Baltic; Day saw 22 entire sprats {Clupea 

 sprattus) up to seven inches in length taken from the stomach of a 1 2-pound fish caught 

 in the tidal portion of the Severn River, England {38). Haddock, eels, small trout 

 {Salmo truttd), flatfishes, and other species have also been found in Atlantic Salmon. 

 A hook-and-Iine fishery using herring as bait is (or was) carried on in the Baltic, and 

 hooks baited with launce {Ammodytes) or with pieces of mackerel sometimes catch them 

 in British waters. Trout, charr, and salmon parr have been reported as being taken 

 from stomachs of Salmon caught by anglers in Scotland (^20\ 73). 



Atlantic Salmon from the Penobscot, Maine, have been full of "shrimp" (probably 

 euphausiids),^* and grilse have been described as feeding on euphausiid shrimps and 

 pelagic amphipods (j6). Sand fleas (gammarid crustaceans) rank with launce and herring 

 as food in the North and Baltic seas; crabs have also been found in Salmon. 



In Iceland, and in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe, they are caught by 

 anglers using natural bait (prawns, angleworms) and artificial minnows, not only in the 

 estuaries and lower reaches of the rivers, but also in lakes near the sea; no doubt this 

 would be the case in Canada also if bait-fishing were allowed there. 



Adults normally eat very little, if at all, after they have run up well beyond the 

 head of tide. Accordingly, their stomachs seldom contain anything except a little yel- 

 lowish fluid. Of the numerous fish from fresh water on the north shore of the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence that were opened by Comeau (34), only four contained recognizable 

 items: two taken by anglers had eaten insects; one speared in November had parts of 

 a mouse in its stomach; and a kelt contained organic fragments, apparently of some 



14. For a survey, with references, of the diet of Salmon in general and in the Gulf of Maine in particular, see Kendall 

 (S7; 33-34); for diet lists for the Baltic and North Sea Salmon, see Eichelbaum {41). 



