ACADIAN FISH AND FISHING. 231 



ance in fresh water in company with the sea trout. 

 They are locally termed jumpers, and well deserve the 

 title from their liveliness when hooked. With a light 

 rod and fine tackle they afford excellent sport, and take 

 a small bright, yellowish fly with great boldness. 



The American salmon spawns very late in the fall, not 

 before November, and for this purpose affects the same 

 localities as his European congener — shallow waters run- 

 ning over beds of sand and gravel. The spawning grounds 

 occur not only in the rivers, but around the large parent 

 lakes, at the entrance of the little brooks that feed them 

 from the forest, and where there are generally deltas 

 formed of sand, gravel, and disintegrated granite washed 

 down from the hills. The spent fish, as a general rule, 

 though some return with the last freshets of the year, 

 remain all winter under the ice (particularly if they have 

 spawned in lakes far removed from the sea), returning 

 in the following spring, when numbers of them are taken 

 by the settlers fishing for trout with worm in pools where 

 the runs enter the lakes. They are then as worthless and 

 slink as if they had but just spawned. In May the young 

 salmon, termed smolts, affect the brackish water at the 

 mouth of rivers, and fall a prey to juvenile anglers in 

 immense numbers — a practice most destructive to the 

 fisheries, as these little fish would return the same season as 

 grilse of three or four pounds weight. The salmon of the 

 Nova Scotian rivers vary in weight from seven to thirty 

 pounds, the latter weight being seldom attained, though 

 a fair proportion of fish brought to market are over 

 twenty pounds. Those taken in the St. Mary are a 

 larger description of fish than the salmon of the southern 

 coast. In the Bay of Chaleurs, in the Eestigouche, 



