8ALMON1DJE. 253 



commence to run into the rivers about the 1st of June. 

 The first fish taken in the nets are medium sized, viz. 

 abput 12 or 14 Ibs. These are merely skirmishers, and 

 are not taken in numbers. Next comes commencing 

 from June 7 to June 15 the main army. In the Resti- 

 gouche and Cascapediac these fish average over 20 Ibs. 

 For two or three days together I have known the average 

 size taken in a net, to be as high as 25 Ibs., and<running 

 up to 40 and even 50 Ibs. As the season advances the fish 

 get smaller, with an occasional monster. The grilse com- 

 mence to run about July 20, and run all August. It is a 

 remarkable thing that in rivers such as the Kestigouche 

 and Metapedia, where the adult salmon are particularly 

 large, the grilse are very small, viz. averaging about 3 Ibs., 

 and I have taken them as low as 1 Ib. Salmon spawn in 

 Canada somewhat earlier than they do at home. In 

 Ireland, where I have had ample opportunities of noticing 

 their habits, I have seldom seen them on the rood much 

 before Christmas. In Kestigouche I have killed a gravid 

 fish on the 1st of September, and in October most of them 

 are on the rood. Nature teaches them that the seasons 

 here are shorter. In Canadian rivers, if they put off 

 rooding till December, the action of the ice on the shal- 

 low spawning beds would make rooding impossible. Many 

 kelts probably all the June run return to the sea in 

 November, or just before the ice makes; the remainder 

 return in April, May, or on the break-up of the ice. Some 

 fish only spawn every second year. I base this assertion 

 upon the fact that I have killed female kelts in the 

 Kestigouche as late as the month of August; these fish had 

 probably spawned late in the season of the preceding year, 



