X -ON THE SALMON OF MAINE. 



By a. C. Hamlin, M. D. 



1. — THE LAND-LOCKED SALMON. 



[Note. — As containing some interesting information respecting tlie( 

 Salmonidce of Maine, especially the so-called "Land-locked salmon," I) 

 reproduce, by permission, the following article from Lippincott's Mag-;j 

 azine for May, 1869.— S. F. Baird.] ' 



salmon-fishing in MAINE, 



A century ago the rivers and lakes of Maine teemed with the salmon i 

 and the trout. Not only were the great rivers and expanded lakes fre- 

 quented by these valuable fish, but even the lesser streams that emp- 

 tied directly into the sea or its fiords, and the most distant tributaries ■ 

 that drained the wild forests and mountain -ranges of the interior, were 

 stocked with incredible numbers of the Salmonidce. Since this time a i 

 great change has taken place ', and while casting our fly to-day in our i 

 exhausted streams, we can hardly believe the stories of our octogena- 

 rian fishermen relative to the vast shoals of fish they encountered when i 

 boys, or the still earlier accounts of the Jesuit fathers when they visited I 

 our primitive forests and attempted to found " La Nouvelle France." 



This almost complete extinction of the noblest of fishes in this State 

 is not the result of the workings of natural law, but due entirely to 

 causes within the control of man. The torch, the spear, the seine, the 

 barrier-dam of the lumbermen, and the choking sawdust of their mills ■ 

 have produced disastrous effects ; and, in consequence, but few of our i 

 largest rivers contain now any salmon at all, and most of our lakes and I 

 mountain-tarns have been despoiled of their trout. We may justly add I 

 to the above causes the introduction of the voracious pickerel — 

 " Tyraut of the watery plaiu." 



The area in this $tate originally occupied by this miniature shark was 

 very limited, and we even have doubts whether it was to be found any- 

 where in Maine prior to the year 1700. Its appearance in the Kenne- 

 bec and Penobscot waters is a matter of recent history, and its ravages 

 among our other fish have been well observed. 



The migratory salmon enters now but few of our largest rivers 5 it 

 ascends them in spring, and passes the summer and autumn season like 

 its prototype, the Salmo salar of Europe ; but it seems to differ from its 

 European brother in game qualities, for it generally refuses to take the 

 bright, gaudy flies and the silver-sided minnows which are so success- 



