RELATION OF RIVER LIFE TO SUBSEQUENT LIFE OF SALMON. 



63 



run late are not caught with the fish which are to run early, and it is known that salmon 

 are in the coastal waters long after the early fish have entered the rivers, and even 

 beyond the season for late runs. It may be asked if the fish taken for artificial propaga- 

 tion are always of the late run. Undoubtedly they are if taken in tide water in the fall. 

 But if taken in the river there might be some doubt about it. 



Huntsman's discussion deals with salmon exclusive of grilse. Therefore the ages at 

 which his salmon migrated to sea as smolts do not appear to support the assertions by 

 other investigators, previously quoted, that the three-year old smolt mature and return 

 to breed after a shorter period in the sea than in the case of the two-year old smolt, ex- 

 cept perhaps in the same river. Thus, in the Miramichi the dominant class of smolt is 

 the three-year fish, while the predominant period in the sea to the first spawning is 2-plus 

 years, and the dominant age of first returning salmon is 5-plus years. In other words, the 

 period from spawning to spawning is six years, with two, three and five years (4-plus) 

 second in order. 



On the other hand in the Saint John in number, the two-year smolt exceeds the three- 

 year smolt, but the predominant period of sojourn in the sea is, like that of the Mirami- 

 chi, two years, and the age at first return five years (4-pIus), with three, one, and six, 

 5-plus years respectively second in order. In fact no fish showing a 3-plus period in the 

 sea was observed, and the one year period was represented by only 2.1 per cent of the 

 salmon under consideration. 



Dahl (1918, p. 30) wrote that there has been a widely spread beUef that as the results 

 of a successful spawning year, after the lapse of a definite interval of time, there would 

 be a year of plentiful salmon. But he showed that inasmuch as the runs of salmon 

 resulting from such a successful breeding year are spread over the catches of six or seven 

 years and in such a manner, that to him, it seemed improbable that by means of statistics 

 any remarkable difference in the effect of different spawnings could be shown. 



How the results of one spawning season are spread over the catches of several years he 

 showed in the following manner: 



'A salmon spawns in the autumn of 1903 — 



TABLE 5. 



'Its offsprings After one, two, three or four winters of sea life they return as maiden 

 migrate as smolts' fish in the years denoted by asterisks. 



'It is obvious,' he says, 'that the results of any one spawning season, whether good or 

 bad, are not restricted to the number of salmon in any single year. The effects are dis- 

 tributed over a long series of years. The fry which are hatched in any particular year 

 may return after their stay in the sea as maiden fish during seven consecutive years, and 



