72 



the operation as a permanent undertaking. Enough 

 salmon have been sent to the Eastern States to fairly 

 test the question, whether their streams are adapted to 

 the residence of these fish, and if success ensues, the 

 eiforts of the Commission will be more than rewarded, 

 while if failure shall occur there will be no reason for 

 further drafts upon waters in which salmo quinnat has 

 his natural home. It is, therefore, questionable whether 

 private fish preserves can be supplied from this source 

 either through national or individual enterprise. 



There is diversity of opinion as to the time when sal- 

 mon go to the sea, and the length of time they remain 

 there before they return. Of European and Eastern 

 salmon it has been supposed that about one-half go to 

 the sea in the Fall one year and a half after they were 

 hatched and the others a year later, but some fish cul- 

 turists contend that they all remain for two years, and 

 others say they all go the very year of their birth. We 

 know that California salmon which were hatched in 

 November remained through the Spring and Summer 

 and until the Summer following, and then disappeared 

 substantially together. We can not tell where they 

 went nor what they did, for we did not go with them. 



It is said the European salmon returns six months 

 later, and in the spring following iiis descent when he 

 weighed a few ounces, in the shape of a grilse or young 

 male salmon just arriving at the age of puberty of as 

 many pounds as he formerly weighed ounces. That he 

 again goes to the sea in the fall and the following spring 

 reappears as a full grown salmon of eight or ten pounds. 

 The better opinion would seem however, to allow them 

 rather more time to attain such ample dimensions, as an 

 increase from ounces to pounds is almost too much for six 



