112 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



of the salmon here, compared with Europe, the same rule 

 holds, that the males precede the opposite sex a year in 

 their power of reproducing. 



In the supplement to the second edition of the American 

 Anglers' Book, I have alluded to a discovery made by Mr. 

 W. F. Whitcher, that the salmon in Canada frequently 

 express their spawn and milt simultaneously, by bodily 

 contact, the male and female lying partially on their sides. 



I am also strongly impressed with the belief, from 

 the long term of incubation required in the rivers of our 

 eastern coast, that the fry do not come from the ova until 

 the summer has set in or advanced somewhat, and that this 

 retards their growth so much that none of them come to 

 the smolt state the second year. In fishing from June 

 until September I have taken many of the fry on my sal- 

 mon flies. I have had them, in some pools, continually 

 jumping at the knots on my casting-line } and at the en- 

 trance of small spring brooks, when there was a good cur- 

 rent in the river, have taken them when fishing for trout; 

 but all had the usual finger-marks of the parr, none the 

 silvery garb of the smolt. Nor had any of the canoe-men 

 I have employed at different times ever seen a young sal- 

 mon with the bright vesture that is significant of its inten- 

 tion to make its first trip to sea. The migration of smolts, 

 therefore, must be before the rod-fishing commences, which 

 is in June or after the middle of September, when it is 

 over. If they migrate in May some of them may return 

 as grilse in August or September, but the large schools 

 which come into the rivers in July are doubtless those that 



