SALMOiflDiE. 33 



To ordinary minds, under the light of mere common 

 sense, unaided by bookish wisdom, the sahnon appears to be 

 amenable to the same natural laws as other fish. Its species 

 are affected by food, temperature, etc., which govern its 

 migrations, its various seasons for spawning, and the time it 

 takes for the eggs to hatch. The simple student of nature 

 gathers his knowledge from wilderness streams or the arti- 

 ficial breeding-works of the pisciculturist — practical schools 

 where truths are learned, and fallacies set at naught ; where 

 dogmas of would-be scientists are overset by ocular demon- 

 stration. He recognizes in the salmon a creature, whose 

 existence, like man's, is divided into four periods — infancy, 

 youth, manhood, and ripe old age — and he designates these 

 several stages of fish-life by the names of Parr, Smolt, 

 Grilse, and Salmon. Observation has taught him that one 

 portion of this existence is passed in salt water, and the re- 

 mainder in fresh ; that in salt water he feeds and grows fat, 

 and in the fresh expends his strength and vital forces ; that 

 these conditions are the necessary precedent and natural 

 sequence of procreation ; that many of his species die in the 

 attempt to reach their spawning-grounds, and many in the 

 act of spawning ; and that these are the ordinary phenomena 

 of reproduction throughout the animal creation. It is also 

 e\ddent that salmon must vary in size and general aj)pear- 

 ance according to their ages ; that adults may be as dis- 

 tinctly and as variously marked as the kine on the lea, and 

 still belong to the self-same species. Along the coasts of 

 Nova Scotia old fishermen pretend to distinguish the fish 

 that belong to different rivers — it being a well-known fact 

 in the natural history of the salmon that they almost inva- 

 riably return to their native streams to spawn. 



After they have ascended to their sj)a^vning beds, it re- 

 quires ten or twelve days to fulfill their mission, and they 

 then go back to the sea. It takes the ova three or four 

 months to hatch, according to the temperature, 4:5" being 

 perhaps the most favorable. In two months after the young 

 3 



