1 6 The Atlantic Salmon 



There has in the Tweed, in the past fifty years, 

 been a very sensible decrease in the number of 

 salmon, of which the smaller proportion of grilse 

 may indicate that the fish in that stage of growth, 

 or possibly the preceding one, had been subject 

 to some untoward influences. However this may 

 be as to the Tweed, there are British rivers and 

 rivers in America wherein the numbers of grilse 

 seem utterly without bearing on the numbers of 

 salmon. One habit they have seems to prevail in 

 both countries — they do not seek, nearly as gen- 

 erally as salmon, to reach the head waters of the 

 rivers they frequent, and this is rather strange, as 

 they seem by reason of their smaller size and 

 greater activity much better able than the adult 

 salmon to travel in shallow and rapid water. 



The number of grilse taken on the lower waters 

 of salmon rivers is, so far as I can ascertain, larger 

 in proportion to the salmon, than on the upper 

 waters, and this difference is quite plainly to be 

 observed in stretches a few miles apart. It may 

 be interesting to give the number of salmon and 

 grilse in some waters I fish, — on the Restigouche 

 River, — and also the number and percentages of 

 the different fish taken in the waters of the Ris- 

 tigouche Salmon Club for twenty years from and 



