410 GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



and down again to the sea. One of the best known examples of 

 this latter class is the salmon, and I will give you a description of 

 their habits in the words of Milne-Edwards, an eminent French 

 naturalist : 



" Each spring it enters the rivers in vast troops to ascend them, 

 even to their sources. In these migrations the salmon follow a 

 regular order, forming two long files, united i^i front, conducted 

 by the largest female, who precedes, while the small males form 

 the rear guard. These troops swim in general with much noise 

 in the middle of rivers, and near the surface of the water if the 

 temperature be mild, but nearer the bottom if the heat be great. 

 In general, salmon advance slowly, sporting as they proceed ; but 

 if danger appears to threaten them, the rapidity of their course 

 becomes such that the eye can scarcely follow them. If a dyke or 

 cascade opposes their progress, they make the greatest efforts to 

 overcome it. Resting on some rock, and extending the body sud- 

 denly and with violence after being curved, they spring out of the 

 water, leaping occasionally to the height of fifteen feet in the air, 

 so as to fall beyond the obstacle which stops them. Salmon as- 

 cend rivers even to their source, and search in the small streams 

 and tranquil places a bottom of sand and gravel adapted to the 

 deposition of their eggs. The eggs are deposited in a trough dug 

 by the female in the sand ; they are afterward fecundated by the 

 male. The young salmon grow very rapidly ; and when they are 

 about a foot long they leave the rivers to repair to the sea, which 

 they quit in its turn to again enter the river * * * toward the 

 middle of the summer that follows their birth." 



These periodical visits are taken advantage of by fishermen, 

 and it is then that all the salmon, herring, mackerel, cod, and other 

 fishes we use, are caught and cured. 



I have no doubt you will be satisfied if I only mention the 

 classification, and I have little time to do more. It is a very large 

 class and contains four sub-classes — The Myzontes, the true Fish, 

 the Ganoids, and the Selachians or cartilaginous fishes. The 

 myzontes are so low and shapeless that they were at one time 

 classified with worms. Many of them live as parasites on other 

 fishes ; some holding on by means of a round sucker-mouth, like 

 the lamprey eel. The true Fish belong to two orders, separated 



