YEARS IN THE RIVER. 55 



At a meeting of the American Fish Cultural Association, in 1880, a paper entitled, 

 'Do Grilse Spaivnf by C. J. Bottemanne (1880, p. 30), Superintendent of Fisheries for 

 the Netherlands, was read by Barnet Phillips. He said, 'Of the entire lot of grUse that 

 enter the Dutch rivers, about seventy-five percent of them, I calculate, are males. All 

 have fuU milt. By the middle of August the hook (which the male salmon has in spawn- 

 ing time on the point of the lower jaw) is developing fast. The females are always in 

 the minority but in the first part of the season there are more than towards the latter 

 part. All have spawn, and towards the end of October they are so far ripe that when 

 one is lifted by the head the spawn is running out.' 



Atkins (1874, p. 331) stated that: 'In our rivers grilse are seldom seen. Three or four 

 per year is the number caught in a weir in the Saint Croix, which takes about 70 adults. 

 In the Denny's the ratio of grilse to salmon caught is not more than one to 500. In the 

 Penobscot they are quite as rare, many a man having grown old in the salmon-fishery 

 without seeing a single specimen.' One old fisherman claimed that at Veazie he had 

 caught, in a dip net, salmon only a foot long, with hooks on their jaws. Such instances 

 Atkins regarded as exceedingly rare. 



No opinion has been expressed concerning the reason grilse are so rare in Maine 

 waters, and so abundant in some European and Canadian rivers. In some rivers of 

 Canada grilse formerly occurred in great numbers coming in from the sea at a later date 

 than older salmon, but like them ascending to upper waters mingling freely with them. 

 In Nova Scotia grilse were common in the Shubenacadie River, according to Dr. Gilpin, 

 from August until late in the fall. On the Miramichi, in New Brunswick, they appeared 

 about July 1, and from the middle of that month to the end of August they constituted 

 the main body of salmon entering the river. Their weight was stated to average about 

 three pounds. The principal run Ln the Nepissiguit, Restigouche, and St. John at 

 Gaspe, was said to be in August and it was stated that they exceeded the older fish in 

 the ratio of 3 to 1. 



A series of scores of salmon fishing in the Godbout River, north shore of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, shows that previous to July 15 or 20 the older salmon exceeded the grilse 

 In the ratio of 10 to 1. 



Dahl (1918, p. 3-4) says ' . . . the so-called grUse, rarely come before the 24th of June, 

 and form the main bulk of the run in late summer . . . The proportion of salmon to 

 grilse varies greatly in various rivers. Some rivers exhibit a predominance of heavy 

 salmon, while grilse are comparatively few.' 



Calderwood (1930, p. 39-40) states that the grilse spawn as the older fish do, but they 

 do not produce as large a proportion of eggs. Also that the grilse eggs are smaller, which 

 has been shown to have an influence on the alevins. He says: 'GrUse appear at a definite 

 time of year. They begin to enter our rivers [Scotland] in earlj' summer, and are most 

 numerous in July.' 



Years in the River. 



The most obvious external characteristics of the parr are the dark transverse bars 

 and red spots on the sides. Of this stage in our rivers very little has been observed. 



