26 SEA FISHERIES 



that such migrations are limited. The salmon of the 

 Fraser River differ from those of the Nimpkish, 

 although the two localities are only some forty to fifty 

 miles apart. The fish always follow the same route. 

 The Fraser River salmon travel along the Strait of San- 

 Juan-de-Fuca. But in spite of the length of the route, 

 and although there are excellent spawning-grounds in the 

 rivers of Vancouver Island, they never depart from their 

 secular habits. In the Nicola Valley (Western Canada) 

 is a river divided into two arms by an island. A dam 

 was built across the left arm, where the salmon were 

 accustomed to pass. They had only to make a turn to 

 the right to reach the upper waters of the river. They 

 never did so ! The eels of the Landes, on the other 

 hand, leave their ponds and brooks and gain the sea at 

 any cost. They wait for a starless night, when the wind 

 is blowing a gale. Nothing stops them on their journey 

 seaward. If an obstacle confronts them they leave the 

 water, crawl over the dunes, and wriggle through the 

 grass and heather. Codfish always swarm off the coasts 

 of Newfoundland and Iceland in winter. The sardine, 

 more capricious perhaps the word will serve to conceal 

 our ignorance always appears in summer in the French 

 waters of the Atlantic. And when in the last days of 

 January the shoals of herring leave the coast of 

 Normandy to plunge into the depths of the sea, the 

 Norman fishers know that they will return in the autumn 

 as punctually as by appointment. Such is the impetuous 

 and invincible force of hereditary instinct. 



I have given these facts in detail because they help to 

 support a thesis which I shall presently develop, and will 

 also enable me to formulate a general theory of fishery. 



ten to twenty fathoms, where they mingle with their relatives of 

 preceding generations. This is true of all flat-fish. 



