THE SALMON. 2$ 



The Wananishc of the Upper Saguenay River, which were 

 long beheved to keep exclusively to fresh water, although 

 they had direct access to the sea, have recently been ascer- 

 tained to be simply a distinct class of the Sea Salmon, peculiar 

 to its own waters, like all the others, and of precisely the 

 same habits and idiosyncrasies; only the peculiar conforma- 

 tion of the Saguenay region and the extreme depth of the 

 river have hitherto prevented such practical observations as 

 were essential to establish the facts. In places the Saguenay 

 is one thousand feet deep, with an extreme average depth for 

 sixty miles from its mouth, and the Wananishe [wa-na-nisJi, 

 in the Indian vernacular) are not seen until they reach the 

 riffs of the chute, or Grande Discharge, which constitutes the 

 outlet of Lake St. John. Like other Salmon enjoying the 

 same fluvial condition, they spawn in the tributaries of the 

 lake (in nearly all of which they occur), and pass the winters 

 in the lake itself, where they subsist chiefly upon a species 

 of Whitefish {Coregoniis) called Wutouche, which is replaced 

 by caplin, smelt, or other sub-species of Salnionidce in waters 

 elsewhere. They have a xx marking on their bodies, instead 

 of the usual round spots; but there are Salmon in some of the 

 other Laurentian rivers marked in precisely the same way. 



Contrary to early notions, which made these land-locked 

 fish an off-shoot of the Sea Salmon, naturalists now agree 

 that the original habitat of the entire family Saluionidcs 

 was in fresh water, and that it is the Sea Salmon which has 

 become erratic — the disturbances of the glacial period having 

 driven them out of their primitive inland possessions. But 

 in obedience to the law of evolution which requires posterity 

 to pass through the same biological changes as their progeni- 

 tors did, all Salmon must be born and live for a time at least 

 in fresh water; hence we find our Sea Salmon coming into 

 the rivers and spending a large proportion of their time in 

 fresh water, seeking there a change of diet and hygienic 

 treatment against parasites and fungus. The spawning sea- 



