932 REPORT OP COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



above Manchester; and almost dailj' after that date we heard of them 

 farther and farther up the Men-imack Kiver. (New Hampshire fish 

 commission, 1878, pp. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.) 



" In addition to the above record there was a full run of salmon, 

 which commenced October 11 and ended October 30. These fish, so 

 far as seen in the way, were from six to ten pounds in weight. Much 

 larger ones may have passed over, as Mr. R. R. Holmes saw one 3 feet 

 long near the hatching-house, at Plymouth, the 1st of November." (New 

 Hampshire fish commission report, p. 6, 1878.) 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



Schoodic salmon. — Some of the land-locked salmon received from Maine 

 were turned into Halfway Pond in Plymouth. The returns received from 

 many of those who had charge of these fish are very favorable. It is 

 qiute certain that they are well established in Halfway Pond. And in 

 Mystic Pond, situated in Medford and Winchester, where they were first 

 introduced, they are appearing in considerable numbers. On the 11th 

 of September a land-locked salmon, 22^ and a half inches long and 

 weighing three and one-quarter pounds, was caught in Lower Mystic 

 Pond by a boy while fishing for i^erch. The boy, not knowing what it 

 was, sold it to J. P. Richardson, of Medford, who forwarded it to the 

 commissioners for identification. A careful inspection of the pond, made 

 in October, showed quite a large school of them, weighing from two to 

 eight pounds each, at the mouth of one of the streams entering the 

 pond. The large fish are probably the Sebago salmon, put in about six 

 years ago. One of the persons making the inspection hooked one of 

 them ; but, being in a small cloth canoe, barely large enough to carry 

 one person, and having the fish on a light fly- rod, he found it impossible 

 to get him into the boat; and, in attempting to reach the shore, the sal- 

 mon recovered himself, and with a sudden leap left hook, line, boat, and 

 fisherman behind him. (Thirteenth annual report of the commissioners 

 of inland fisheries for the year ending September 30, 1878. 8vo. pamph., 

 Boston, 1879, paper, p. 13.) 



Atlantic salmon. — Our experience with young salmon in the Merrimack 

 shows pretty conclusively that they do not go down to the sea until the 

 third year. The salmon put in the river in 1876 have been carefully 

 watched, and were found to be very numerous all along the river, espe- 

 cially near the mouths of trout brooks, showing no disposition to change 

 their quarters un til about the middle of last August, when they began 

 slowly to move downstream, (p. 18.) 



Atlantic salmon, 7 inches long, of the planting of 1876, were so plenti- 

 ful up to about the middle of August, that it was impossible to fish with- 

 out frequently hooking them. Mr. R. R. Holmes actually hooked three 

 at one cast, and remarked that the river was alive with them. In Au- 

 gust they began to disappear, and at this date very few are seen. On 

 the 6th of November I dipped up a small Atlantic salmon, about 3 inches 



