12 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
life at the hands of natural enemies. The perils which the 
g and the young fish have to encounter are so numerous 
and so formidable even under the most favourable con- 
ditions that only a small percentage of them ever arrive 
at maturity. A glance at the life-history of the salmon 
will explain this. 
Although to all intents and purposes a sea-fish, living 
in salt water and feeding there on small crustaceans, fish 
fry, lug-worms and other marine creatures, the salmon 
has recourse to fresh waters for the purpose of breeding. 
While in the sea it lays up on its body and on the in- 
ternal organs known as the ceca or pyloric appendages a 
store of fat, which is afterwards absorbed into the system 
and goes to assist in the development of the roe. 
When the proper time arrives the fish leave the salt water 
and make their way into the fresh water of the rivers, 
ascending the remotest tributaries which it is possible for 
them to reach, and selecting shallow streams with a quick 
current and a gravelly bottom, where they deposit their 
spawn. On finding a suitable spot they scoop out a shallow 
hole with their tails ; into this the female fish drops, a few 
at a time, her eggs—the hard roe—while her male com- 
panion fertilizes them, as they fall, with his milt—the soft 
roe. But many eggs fall to the bottom unfertilized, and 
thus the first toll is levied on the fecundity of the parent fish 
and on the possible future increase of salmon in the river. 
Greedy trout are lying in wait to feed on the dainty fare, 
and even the salmon themselves are not free from the 
suspicion of cultivating cannibal tastes by dining off their 
own or their neighbours’ eggs. Even when the fertilized 
ova are safely deposited, and have been carefully covered 
beneath a thin layer of gravel, they have probably not lain 
long before another pair of breeding fish arrive, and incon- 
