OF XATURAL HISTORY OF CANADA 



39 



THE GAME FISHES OF QUEBEC 



At the head of the list of game fishes of the Province of Quebec 

 must be placed the different species of the salmonidae, those highly 

 favored, clean living denizens of our waters, which in the shape 

 of an adipose fin, bear the badge of royalty among fishes. 



The Salmon 



Facile princeps among these is Salmo salar, the Atlantic salmon 

 of our coastal streams, formerly most abundant in the St. Lawrence 

 and its tributaries as far as the head of Lake Ontario, but now 

 never found above Quebec and very scarce in any of the waters 

 west of the Saguenay. It is still fairly abundant in some of the 

 tributaries of the last mentioned river and also in nearlj'^ all the 

 rivers flovsdng into the St. Lawrence from the Saguenay to the 

 sea on both sides of the river, as well as into the Baie des Chaleurs. 

 In some of these rivers, as for instance in the Cascapedia, the 

 Ristigouche and the Moisie, it has been known to attain a weight 

 of over fifty pounds. 



The original home of the salmon must have been in fresh 

 water, for here it is born and here also it returns from its lengthy 

 s6jcm-n in the sea to reproduce its kind. Spending the greater 

 part of its life in the sea it feeds voraciously there on herrings, 

 sand-eels, young haddocks and other small fish and Crustacea 

 and marine worms. Spawning instincts cause it to seek the river 

 in which it was born, which it usually ascends, in this province, 

 late in May, more often in the first part of June and sometimes 

 as late as July. It surmounts the heaA-iest currents and rapids 

 and successfully breasts waterfalls of a few feet in height, and thus 

 painfully, and at times. necessaril\', somewhat slowly, finds its 

 way to suitable spawning grounds near the upper waters of the 

 river, where it seeks suitable shallow and sandy or graveUy stretches 

 of water in which to deposit its eggs. The female, with her tail, 

 assisted by the male with his hooked lower jaw, opens drills in 

 the river bed a few inches deep, in which the female deposits her 

 eggs, generally from 900 to 1,000 in number for everA' pound of 

 her own weight. The male, following after her, impregnates the 

 ova with his milt and then the gravel is carefully pushed back 

 over the drill to cover up the eggs. Too often, however, many of 

 these eggs are destroyed by sea trout which follow the spawning 

 salmon and devour the dainty morsels, and often the later spawning 

 salmon in making recept-acles for their eggs, root up the carefully 

 deposited ova of previous spawners, which are quicklj- devoured 

 by trout and manj' species of water birds such as kingfishers, 

 cormorants and wild ducks, especially shelldrakes and other 

 mei^ansers. 



After spawning, the salmon are much exhausted and emaciated, 

 and are then known as foul salmon and unfit for food. Only 

 when they have descended to the sea, where they feed very rave- 

 nously, do they recover their strength and wonted condition. 



