THE SALMON. 1 



NTIL within the last fifty years very 

 little was known of the natural history 

 of the Salmon, the united lore of those 

 most interested in the fisheries amount- 

 ing to little beyond the fact that the fish ascended 

 the rivers to spawn during the spring and summer 

 spawned and descended again to the sea within 

 the following two or three months. 



Since the period referred to, however, and espe- 

 cially during the last two or three decades, the 

 researches of ichthyologists and the experiments 

 which have been conducted on a large scale by 

 enterprising and scientific men have thrown a 

 flood of light upon the subject, converting doubts 

 into certainties, theories into practice, and gene- 

 rally advancing our knowledge of the subject to a 

 point which has already produced practical results 

 of great importance in the re-stocking of our ex- 



1 Salmo salar. Salmo, Lat. for a salmon ; salar, from the 

 Latin salarhis, of salt. 



B 





