THE SALMON. 



27 



take best when the water is clear, and others when it is 

 roiled and discolored; some when the water is thin and low, 

 and others on the surge of a mighty flood. There are no 

 conditions or stages, it would seem, when the Salmon will 

 not accept one or more of the above-named baits at some 

 time or other in the course of twenty-four hours, as observers 

 have ascertained. It is remarkable that this question should 

 have remained open for so many centuries, and that none of 

 the books have set the matter right. 



Directly in this connection it may be mentioned that the 

 annelids, or sand-worms, play an important part in influenc- 

 ing the spring movements of Salmon. At that season they 

 swarm in from the ocean to breed on the beach flats, either 

 swimming free like eels, in great masses, or housed in their 

 burrows. Indeed they constitute a most important element 

 in the economy of many kinds of fish not only of nomadic 

 and littoral species, but of those which constantly root for 

 them in their beds, like the Tautog, Haddock, etc. It is 

 manifest that the pulpy bodies of these worms, as well as 

 •of much other delicate food which Salmon eat in the early 

 spring, dissolve in their stomachs like glucose or starch. It 

 is digested almost as soon as swallowed, and in the absence 

 of visible sustenance superficial observers have decided that 

 they did not eat at all. 



As regards the spring run of Salmon, it would be impossible 

 for them to sustain life for the five months intervening until 

 autumn spawning season unless they fed, while in respect to 

 the late autumn runs they but follow the instinct of all preg- 

 nant creatures on the eve of parturition, eating a little here 

 and a little there, fastidious, whimsical, ravenous, and indis- 

 posed by turns. It would be inexplicable indeed if Salmon 

 alone, of all creatures, were not required by nature to fortify 

 and strengthen themselves for the supremest act of physical 

 existence. Physiology will easily explain why the distended 

 ovaries, pressing upon the stomach and intestines, will not 



