50 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



comes for depositing their spawn ; getting worse in 

 condition every day they are in fresh water, and thus, 

 as it should seem, doing unnecessary penance all 

 that time. Others, again, remain in the sea, thriving 

 all the while, and do not enter the rivers till their 

 spawn is nearly matured. I have said above that I 

 believe the Smolts singly, or in small quantities, are 

 continually falling down to the sea in nearly if not 

 quite every month of the year, according to their 

 age ; but that they congregate, and go there in vast 

 shoals in the beginning of the month of May. There 

 seems to be a corresponding habit as to the time of 

 their return ; for they come back at first in small 

 quantities, and periodically in the spring and summer 

 months, and in July they arrive in vast quantities ; 

 and this sudden abundance consists, I think, of the 

 fry that have assembled and gone to sea the pre- 

 ceding May, whilst the others that ascend at different 

 periods are the Smolts that go down in the same 

 manner. 



The accompanying lithograph represents a fry in 

 the state when the silver scales just begin to appear, 

 and soften the bars and spots the intermediate 

 state between the summer Parr and Smolt. 



As to the belief that Salmon return to the same 

 river in which they are bred, I hold it to be a well- 

 founded one. But I think it is not invariably the 

 case ; and that should their native river be too low 

 for their ascent, owing to an extraordinary drought, 

 and continue so when the period of spawning ap- 

 proaches, most of the Salmon will seek and ascend 

 some other river that may be contiguous to it, 



