THE SALMON. Y 



In the beginning of April, when the rays of the 

 sun become so warm as to reach the bottom of these 

 shoals, the vivification of the spawn takes place. 

 The young fry grows surprisingly fast. When the 

 floods of May set in, an irresistible instinct hurries 

 them down to the sea. It has been noticed that 

 upon their entering into brackish water, they make a 

 stop, and continue there for some time, which no 

 doubt is gradually to prepare themselves for the 

 new element which they are about to inhabit. In 

 the months of July and August, these very fry, or 

 smouts, come up as gilses to the same rivers which 

 they left in May, and in this state they remain until 

 November or December, and frequently longer, 

 when they revisit the sea, and upon their next re- 

 covering the spawn with the gravel and sand, which he throws 

 up with his head, making at the same time a new bed, and 

 filling up the other. All this he does by himself, for I never 

 saw the she fish along with the he, when he was making a new 

 hole at the head of the other. Sometimes I have seen him lie 

 still in the hole as if resting himself, and then in an hour or 

 two brings up his mate again and proceeds as before. 



" In wet or haze, they will be three or four nights in finish- 

 ing their work ; but frosty weather puts them in a hurry, and 

 they have done in two nights or less, and hastening down to 

 their holds, take the first opportunity of getting to sea. I have 

 been the more particular in this article, because I have seen it 

 often done, and in many places, both in the evenings and morn- 

 ings, and sometimes at night with light. A salmon spawn 

 heap will be three yards or more in length, and two feet or 

 near a yard broad, and looks like a new made grave." North- 

 cm Angler. 



B 4 



