12 MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 13. 



the birds go to the nets and help themselves to the contents. 

 The few herring they take are on the whole only a bagatelle ; 

 but when half a dozen small fish is all that can be expected from a 

 net to serve for a day's fishing, and half or more are taken by 

 cormorants, the fishermen can hardly be criticized for giving vent 

 to some evidences of discontent at the loss of a day's work and 

 profit. However, though the fishermen do look upon the cor- 

 morants as one of their natural enemies, they do not seem to be 

 bitter against them; not nearly as much so as the salmon an- 

 glers, who only have a sporting interest in their fish and are not 

 dependent upon them for a livelihood. The best protection for 

 the herring in the nets against the cormorants appears to be to 

 lift the nets early in the morning before the cormorants commence 

 to fish. Recourse may be had to frozen bait, caught when her- 

 ring are plenty and preserved for times of scarcity. This has 

 been tried and, according to reliable reports, with good success 

 by those who gave it a fair trial ; but the majority of the fishermen 

 are too conservative to adopt new methods and the freezing 

 apparatus was a financial failure and was discarded. 



The life history of the Atlantic salmon seems to be about 

 as follows. The eggs are laid in the sand at the headwaters of 

 the streams in the autumn, being deposited by the female and 

 fertilized by the male who then covers them with sand. In the 

 spring they hatch and the young, still with a large sac of egg 

 yolk attached, seek safety in the crevices of the rocks until the 

 sac is absorbed, when they begin feeding and gradually spread down 

 stream. Here they remain two years growing into fingerlings 

 or, as they are technically called, parr. At this stage, when 

 they are about 4 inches long, they proceed to deep water as 

 smolts. Authorities differ as to the time spent at sea in this 

 stage, and some doubt is expressed as to whether the typical 

 smolt characteristics are developed before or after entering salt 

 water. When they again ascend the streams they are grilse, 

 with a weight of from 2 to 5 pounds. They descend to the sea 

 at the end of the season to come back the following year fully 

 developed, 20 to 40 pound breeding salmon. The adult salmon 

 does not feed in fresh water until after the eggs are deposited 

 and fertilized. The trip is long and arduous and when the 



