66 KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND SALMONS. 



come ripe first, and becoming free for extrusion are first deposited. On extrusion they 

 are at once fertilized by the attendant male fish, and then covered by gravel. The female 

 then leaves the redd. As the remainder of the eggs ripen, she returns and repeats the 

 process, for several days, until all the eggs are shed. 



Hutton writes (1924, p. 14-15), 'In the majority of our rivers most of the spawning 

 takes place in the upper waters from October to January. In the Wye the bulk of the 

 spawning takes place in November. The operations are usually carried on in strong 

 streams about 2 to 3 feet deep. The fish do not Uke sand, and they generally select 

 streams with fairly large gravel and stones — say up to the size of large potatoes. A 

 rocky bottom is useless for spawning. The hen-fish does the bulk of the work, as most of 

 the cock-fish spend much of their time in the glorious old game of fighting. It is no 

 unusual thing for one cock to kill another during the spawning operations. 



'When the hen-fish is about to spawn she swims up a yard or two and comes up to 

 the surface of the water. She then throws herself on one side and arches her body with the 

 belly curved outwards. Violent convulsions then pass through the whole body of the 

 fish from tail upwards, and this throws up quantities of gravel and silt. It is at that 

 moment the eggs are extruded, and these being heavier than water immediately sink to 

 the bottom and settle in the crevices amongst the stones and gravel. Occasionally the 

 cock-fish sidles up alongside her, but I have never seen the male salmon "throw itself." 

 After these convulsions the lady drops back to the top of the "redd", or spawning bed, 

 where there is usually a hollow or deeper place, which has been cut up by her operations. 

 These convulsions are repeated every three or four minutes, and, as she moves up a Uttle 

 higher each time, she gradually "cuts and covers" a sort of trench up through the gravel. 

 This may go on for about a week or longer, and ultimately she digs up a bed, which is 

 sometimes 3 or 4 yards long.' 



The following account of the spawning act of the salmon has been condensed from 

 the recent description of Bel ding (1934), who definitely differentiates the spawning act 

 from the digging of the redd. The detailed observations on the spawning of the brook, 

 brown and rainbow trout by several investigations during the last four years tend to 

 corroborate his findings. 



'The spawning grounds of the Atlantic salmon are scattered along the entire course of 

 the coastal rivers from the upper reaches to just above tidal waters. Here spawning takes 

 place in late October and early November, the season varying yearly with cUmatic 

 conditions. The spawning grounds are in the shallow, swift-running water. The most 

 suitable soU is a course gravel which contains many stones from two to eight inches in 

 size. While the female salmon may select any position in the river with suitable soil 

 and flow, the majority of the beds are located near the banks of the river, where the 

 flow of the water is broken. 



'The redd or spawning bed is easily recognized by the Ughter color of the newly ex- 

 posed gravel and stones. At the upper end is a hollow, usually three by two and one-half 

 feet and some eight inches deep, below which extends a mound of newly turned gravel 

 and stones from eight to 20 feet long and two and one-half to three feet wide, resembling 



