176 THE SALMON AND ITS MIGRATIONS 



is a general one, whether it be near Mingan or 

 Tadousac, just wherever the fish may come in. 

 I have had considerable experience in the netting 

 of salmon and have owned and fished several 

 stands myself, eastwards from the neighbourhood 

 of the Saguenay, within a period of some thirty 

 years During this time I must have caught, per- 

 sonally, fully twenty thousand salmon, all of 

 which, with the exception of possibly five or six 

 fish, were gilled in our nets going west; and my 

 experience in that respect is that of hundreds of 

 other fishermen. 



The object of this migration is to enter the riv- 

 ers for the purpose of spawning. This they gen- 

 erally do as soon as the ice and snow have disap- 

 peared from the water, which is usually around 

 the 10th of June in most of our rivers. With a 

 few exceptions the run of salmon ceases about the 

 end of July. Previous to entering the pure fresh 

 water, they remain for some time in the estuar- 

 ies, moving in and out with the tides, becoming 

 gradually acclimatized. Otherwise they would 

 probably be killed by the sudden change of condi- 

 tions. I have often noticed the occurrence of such 

 fatalities among other fish, such as cod, herring, 

 caplin and in a few isolated cases with halibut 

 and lobsters, when they are wafted into a river 

 with a flood tide, in sea water, and then over- 

 whelmed with the fresh water on the ebb, owing 

 to the more rapid run out of the surface water. 



