83 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



in height, divided by an island into two branches, one 

 of which is perpendicular, the other broken into steps. In a 

 small deep hole half-way up the latter, I caught five Wananishe 

 of from two and one-half to four and one-half pounds in weight, 

 which were apparently spawning. The ova and milt exuded 

 when the fish were handled; the noses of the fish were abraded 

 as when they turn up gravel to form their beds, and the 

 ovaries of one of the females were half emptied. It was 

 earlier than the usual spawning-time, and on the most unlikely 

 spawning-ground that could be imagined. I should not even 

 have suspected the presence of any fish there. 



We were returning from a long journey up the river, and 

 had run out of provisions altogether. One of the men whom 

 I had set to work to catch something, somehow, threw his 

 bait into this hole casually, on his way down to the foot of 

 the fall, and had a rise from a large fish. As anxious a day's 

 fishing as I ever did succeeded this. A wary cast of a Jock 

 Scott brought a fish to look at the fly, and turn back deliber- 

 ately. After a half-hour interval he came again. Every fly 

 in the book, and every dodge I knew, were pitted against the 

 provoking indisposition of those Wananishe to be caught. At 

 last it became a matter of personal pride as well as of hunger. 

 Eventually artfulness and patience triumphed, and an interest- 

 ing discovery, as well as a good supper, resulted; but it was 

 hard to take measurements and notes of those fish before 

 handing them to the cook. 



The size of the Land-locked Salmon varies a good deal, in 

 different waters, but is pretty uniform in each locality. 

 According to Mr. Atkins, the Sebago and Union fish are larger 

 than those of the Sebec and St. Croix. The Sebago fish 

 average at spawning-time four or five pounds for the males, 

 and a pound less for the females; but specimens running as 

 high as twelve or fourteen pounds are not rare, and there is a 

 record of one weighing seventeen and one-half pounds. The 

 Union River fish are about the same size as those of Sebago. 



