14 The Atlantic Salmon 



gent man, told me the second time I was on the 

 river that no female grilse ascended it, and for 

 many years I had every one examined that was 

 caught, without finding a single female. The 

 same, I was told by an old half-breed canoeman 

 of the Nepisiguit, is true of that river, in which 

 grilse come up with the first run of salmon and 

 are very much more abundant than on the Res- 

 tigouche, where they do not begin to run until 

 July, and are never plentiful then. The observa- 

 tions on these and other American rivers are not 

 extensive and careful enough to establish with 

 certainty the facts as to the sexes of grilse, 

 though I believe that very few, if any, female 

 grilse ascend the Restigouche. 



Another curious fact about grilse which has 

 been observed on both sides of the Atlantic, is 

 the great relative disparity between them and the 

 salmon in different rivers, in numbers. It is, 

 of course, impossible to make more than a wild 

 guess how many grilse there should be to one 

 salmon in the same stream, supposing all those 

 belonging there should ascend it simultaneously, 

 but it is certain that some rivers have in them 

 every year many more grilse than salmon, which 

 would seem to be the proper state of affairs, 



