No. 1.] WATT — FOOD OF THE SALMON. Ill 



at Eastport, feeds upon the same species when they come around 

 the wharves, but probably does not pursue them to the same 

 extent as the herring and pollock. — The American Naturalist. 



Note on the Food of the Sal3I0N. — The salmon is a 

 greedy feeder while in the salt-water. Having examined large 

 numbers of these fish just taken from the nets at several of the 

 fisheries on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. I have uniformly 

 found them to be gorged with food, — as heavily gorged and with 

 the same food as were the cod-fish and other ground-feeders taken 

 in the same neiohbourhood at the same time. Laro-e shoals of 

 small fish visit these coasts during the summer and autumn ; 

 sometimes of sand-launce (^Ammodytes sp.), sometimes of smelts 

 (Osmcrus mordax Gill), more frequently of capeliu (^Mallotus 

 villosus Rich.), and these form the staple food of all the larger 

 fish. I have taken as many as twenty-five capelins from the 

 stomach of a salmon, besides a quantity of half-digested matter. 

 The spawn of the echinoids is said to be largely eaten by the 

 salmon, and to account for the colour of his muscle ; be that as 

 it may, doubtless nothing juicy and palatable comes amiss to him, 

 and his condition shews that he feeds to good purpose. On the 

 other hand, I have never found any food whatever in the intes- 

 tines of a salmon taken in the fresh-water ; one or two small flies 

 occasionally, or a winged bug, probably taken in sport, and more 

 frequently intestinal worms, formed the sole contents of the col- 

 lapsed stomach and intestinal canal. From lack of food or other- 

 wise, his stay in our Lower Canada rivers is evidently a prolonged 

 fast, during which he lives on his tissues, consuming them some- 

 times even to dissolution. 



D. A. Watt. 



