APPENDIX. 301 



banks of which I was born. This association has been extended 

 in after life to many other salmon rivers, in different parts of 

 the world, where I have enjoyed the pleasures of " the angle." I 

 am enabled, therefore, from personal observation, to communicate 

 some particulars respecting the natural history of the fish, which, 

 probably, are not generally known, and may be, to a certain extent, 

 interesting to the members of the Literary Society of Quebec. 



The Salmo Salar is placed by Cuvier at the head of the fourth 

 family of the Malacopterygii, or soft-finned fishes. In a paper of 

 this light and desultory nature, it does not appear necessary to 

 describe its generic characteristics more minutely. It is an in- 

 habitant of cold, or temperate climates, to the north of the equa- 

 tor ; having never been found in the south. Indeed, such is the 

 dislike of this fish for a warm climate, that it is very rarely seen 

 in Europe southward of the 45th or 46th degree of latitude, but 

 it abounds in the northern waters of the old world as it does in 

 the new. Salmon run from the Pacific up the Columbia river, 

 as from the Atlantic into the St. Lawrence. The rivers of the 

 Polar regions swarm with salmon during the short summer, and 

 they are caught there in prodigious numbers. Commander Boss 

 obtained a ton weight of the fish from the Esquimaux in exchange 

 for a sailor's knife, value about sixpence ; and his men afterwards 

 took 3300 salmon at a single haul of the seine. 



The rivers of Newfoundland and the Labrador coast contain 

 abundance of these fish, which are also caught, but in diminish- 

 ing numbers, in the streams of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 

 They are found in the Kennebec and Connecticut rivers, and a 

 stray fish may be sometimes taken in the Hudson and the Dela- 

 ware ; but this is a rare occurrence. Salmon never ascend the 

 Mississippi. 



Norway is said to be the finest salmon country in the world. 

 These fish go up the Rhine as far as the falls of Schaffhausen > 

 which they cannot surmount. They are found in the Loire, but 



