578 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Should this supposition be well founded, which the attempt of a few 

 years with spawn brought from another place will show, then one should, 

 in the places which prove to be less favorable, seek to provide the 

 remedy for the absence of nourishing capacity for the young by direct 

 feeding, and also constantly renew the race by bringing spawn from 

 more i)rofitable places. 



But even an inferior race of salmon grows much more rapidly than 

 sea-trout, even the larger form, so that the relation between these with 

 regard to yearly increase of growth will be not far from the same as 

 previously pointed out with regard to the relation between salmon and 

 lake-trout. If, then, the mutual antipathy mentioned between the 

 salmon and the sea-trout may be only a baseless conjecture, this differ- 

 ence in growth from year to year, in connection with the salmon's re- 

 turning to its birthplace earlier in the year, will cause its culture to be- 

 come much more jirofitable than that of the sea-trout, which requires 

 just the same labor and outlay for apparatus. It has been jjreviously 

 stated that salmon-fishing ought to carried on in such a way that one, 

 at all events after hatching has been prosecuted for three or four years, 

 will not catch any but grown fish, that is to say, of about 6 kilograms in 

 weight. The apparatus which will be required for such fishing will be 

 unserviceable for the capture of sea-trout, which only at a comparatively 

 advanced age reach such a size. I should, therefore, consider it best to 

 undertake the culture of only one of the fishes mentioned, and then 

 preferably the more profitable one — the salmon. 



For both these species of fish in question, one is clearly free from all 

 care with regard to their nourishment, except during their earliest youth. 

 The wealth of the sea in food which they require is certainly boundless; 

 at all events, men are able, so far as their insight at present extends, to 

 do nothing to increase it, even if it should be considered desirable. 



As regards the eel, it acts just the reverse of the species previously 

 mentioned. It is bom, so far as we now know, in salt water alone, and 

 migrates from this in early youth, when of the size of a coarse darning- 

 needle, up along the brooks and rivulets to the fresh waters, where it 

 passes many years of its life. In migrating up into the water-courses 

 it is not easily stopped by any obstacle ; if the current is stronger than 

 it can swim against, the young eel takes to the land, and continues its 

 way in compact columns of many thousands on the moist bank ; it 

 winds even ui) the trunks of trees in dams, and thus advances where 

 one would consider it impossible. The migration takes place, as re- 

 marked, in dense multitudes of many thousands. Whether or not eels 

 are born in the sea we have no certain knowledge, neither do we know 

 whether they are also born in fresh water. 



The journey of the eel-fry up into the water-courses takes place in 

 April, May, and June — in different places at different times, probably 

 according to the condition of the weather. From midsummer and 

 during autumn, especially during the dark autumn nights, the adult 



