58 - SALMONIDiB. 



it anything but improbable that it too, in favourable situations, 

 should grow to an equal size ; nor is there any reason for 

 doubting it, since it is known to grow to the weight of five 

 or six pounds, within a few ounces of which latter weight 

 I have myself seen it; and there is no natural or physical 

 analogy by which we should set that weight as the limit to its 

 increase. 



Should these remarks call the attention of sportsmen to a 

 matter of deep interest, and elicit from them occasional records 

 of examinations, which none can institute so well as they, their 

 end will be fully answered, and these pages will not have been 

 thrown away. 



We now come at once to the history of this family, and first, 

 as best, to that of the true Salmon. 



This, being the noblest and most game in its character of all 

 fishes, as I have observed before, once abounding in all waters 

 eastward of the Hudson, and though it has now ceased to 

 exist in numbers west of the Penobscot, and even there can be 

 rarely taken with the fly, is still the choicest pursuit of the 

 American angler, although he may be now compelled to seek it 

 in the difficult and uncleared basins of the Nova Scotian rivers ; 

 in the northern tributaries of the huge St. Lawrence; or yet 

 farther to the westward, in the streams of the Columbia and 

 the cold torrents of Oregon, all of which contain the true 

 Salmon, with many other noble and distinct varieties, in un- 

 equalled numbers. 



Of this glorious fish, of its generation, migrations, growth, 

 and habits, so much has been discovered within, comparatively 



