THE NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS 



mere imagination. Therefore, in 1834, 1 commenced a 

 system of marking the spawned fish, by inserting copper 

 wire into the fin. This was for the two-fold purpose 

 of ascertaining if the fish returned to the same river, 

 and the length of time they were absent from the 

 time they left the river in the foul or kelt state, until 

 they returned clean salmon. I kept a register of the 

 days on which they were marked, and the various 

 marking days were distinguished by inserting the 

 wire in a different fin of the fish. This we continued 

 to do for several years, and the result invariably was 

 that the fish returned to the river where they were 

 marked ; and although five good salmon rivers fall 

 into the same estuary, the marked fish were invariably 

 found in the rivers where they were marked ; and 

 although these five rivers fall into the same estuary 

 at different places, and the fish of all these rivers come 

 up the estuary for twenty miles promiscuously to- 

 gether, each river has its own peculiar race of fish, 

 and each race finds its own river with the most perfect 

 decision. 



The first of these rivers that fall into the estuary, 

 has a run of well-shaped salmon, whose average 

 weight is about ten pounds. The second has strong, 

 coarse scaled, rather long to be well shaped, but very 

 hardy salmon, whose average weight is about seven- 

 teen pounds. The third river has a middling shaped 

 salmon whose average is about nine pounds. The 

 fourth river has long ill-shaped salmon, averaging 

 about eight pounds. And the fifth river, although 

 the smallest of the five, has fine shaped fish, averaging 

 fully fourteen pounds ; and although the fish of all 

 these rivers mix together, and all travel together on 

 the common road to the sea, feed there promiscuously 

 on the common feeding-ground, and then return by 

 the same common path, each party finds out its own 



