A Sportsman 339 



The taking of salmon in the open sea, fresh in their 

 feeding habit upon their accustomed food, was such a 

 novel experience to me that I took pains to study their 

 methods of feeding, of approach, and attack, and the 

 character of the food upon which they subsist, which 

 gives them such astonishingly rapid growth. These par- 

 ticulars are important in accounting for the splendid 

 condition they are almost invariably found in, when 

 fresh from the sea. The parr or smolt, taking the sea 

 in a year or two from the fresh water stream where it is 

 hatched out, is nourished first from the umbilical sac, 

 and following on the protozoa and ephemera, and is of 

 light weight, less than a quarter of a pound, but in the 

 sea gains a number of pounds the first year, when it is 

 designated as a grilse. In two or three years more it is 

 a well grown salmon. 



At exactly what age they take to the fresh water 

 from the sea for spawning cannot be positively stated, 

 but it may be assumed that they do so after three years 

 of sea life. Perhaps some may go to the fresh water after 

 two years' sojourn in the sea, and some may wait four 

 years. We know that the spawn exists in the young 

 female identical with its growth, as well as developed 

 faculties in the male grilse. The ova, however, remains, 

 one might say, dormant, incidental with growth of the 

 female, but after two, three, or four years' life in the 

 sea, as the case may be, visibly develops, but does not 

 reach the voiding condition until stimulated by the ad- 

 vent of the fish into fresh water. Fresh water is a neces- 

 sitated element to anadromous fishes, and when the 

 ova of such have reached a comparatively matured 

 condition, the impulse of nature directs them to the 

 spawning grounds. 



