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CHAPTER IX. 



MANIPULATING SALMON AND TROUT. 



SPAWNING SEASON. The salmon family of the At- 

 lantic States, including the eastern salmon, the salmon 

 trout, the brook trout, the whitefish, and the lake 

 herring, spawns in the autumn and fore part of 

 winter. The grayling spawns in March and April, 

 the California salmon in summer, commencingin the 

 latter part of August, and the California mountain 

 trout in Spring, beginning in the middle of March. 

 Trout commence to spawn about October. The colder 

 the climate is, theeailier they will spawn. In Caledonia 

 Creek the trout lay their first eggs about the 12th of 

 October ; the water standing then at about forty-eight 

 degrees. In the preserves where the temperature, at 

 that time, is a few degrees higher, they begin to spawn 

 about the 1st of November, and cease about the 1st of 

 March. The length of the spawning season depends up- 

 on the equality of the temperature of the water. In 

 streams where the temperature does not vary much, 

 winter or summer, the length of the season is three or 

 four months, sometimes more, and in cold mountain 

 streams it only lasts two months, closing by the middle 

 of January. 



SIGNS OF SPAWNING. As the season of spawning ap 

 proaches, the difference of sexes shows more clearly. It 

 is very hard in the summer to tell the difference between a 

 male and female trout. By handling them much and 

 watching them closely the trout breeder comes to know 

 the male and female apart almost instinctively ; but he 

 would be puzzled to tell just how he knows it. The male 



