TRANSMISSION OF EGGS OF QUINNAT SALMON. 915 



of commissioners of the sea fisheries) all the yearly reports since 1870, 

 which I forwarded to your address in Washington by bookpost in the 

 latter days of October lost, and I will take care to send the same every 

 year as soon as published, whi(;h is commonly not before September; 

 rather late. At the same time I forwarded two pamphlets of Mr. de 

 Bont, one French, one Dutch. This gentleman, v»ho belongs to the 

 board of directors of the zoological garden, is amateur pisciculturist, 

 has always superintended the fish-breeding establishment, and is lately 

 very successful. 



In our rivers we find in the fall, September and November, the salmon 

 almost and entirely ready to spawn, but at the same time there are in 

 September commonly a few, later on more, and now nothing else but 

 heavy salmon, averaging about 25 pounds, which we call " winter sal- 

 mon ; " in England, I believe, "fresh run salmon." The ovary in those sal- 

 mon are so minute that they were formerly entirely overlooked, and so 

 this salmon was declared to be sterile. When I investigated our rivers 

 in 18G9 and 1870 with Mr. Pollen, we found this to be not so. We gath- 

 ered the roe and milt for a period of more than a year, and so we got 

 the successive development from the winter up to the spawning salmon ; 

 and this i^roved that the winter salmon was not sterile. We proved 

 also that the Salmo hamatus was nothing else but the male Salmo salar 

 in breeding time, and that the gray and dark colored red-spotted one 

 was nothing but the female in the same condition. After spawning she 

 became just as silvery as a spring salmon and the male lost his hook be- 

 fore he died. Up till now it is still an open question " what makes the 

 winter salmon come into the river the same time the others come into 

 spawn ? " She is not ready to do so before next fall, and in the spring 

 there is caught once in a while a salmon with worms hanging out of his 

 head, emaciated, and in terribly poor condition : a fish that in good con- 

 dition would weigh 25 pounds does not weigh more than 11 or 12 pounds ; 

 the body, always broader than the gills, is so much shrunk that the 

 gills protrude considerably. Almost invariably are those that have been 

 so-called winter salmon, drifting seaward, which is proven by the fact 

 that the first caught are always higli up in the river and later on in the 

 tideway, but we never catch many, and in later years but few. Now, as 

 to what winter salmon is, I gave the following exi)lanation : 



The salmon is bound to come into the rivers for reproduction, but if 

 they all came at the same time, viz, in the fall, being all in neaxly the 

 same state of development, they would altogether reach to nearly the 

 same height in the river and be comj)elled to spawn there and then. Of 

 course there was not place enough for the whole lot, so the one would 

 root up the nest of the other, and it would be a wonder if the whole 

 progeny was not destroyed. aSTo, says mother nature, not so. You go 

 so much earlier in the river; and you so much; that leaves you time to 

 go so much farther, and in this way you will all find a good place to 

 spawn, and so you will find sx)awniug-beds all along the Ehiue up to 



