CHAPTER IV. 

 THE SALMON. 



THIS noble fish was known to the world as early as the days 

 of the Romans. Pliny speaks of them as being in the rivers 

 of Aquitaine. They are found at the present day in the 

 waters of France, England, Ireland and Scotland, and on this 

 continent as far north as Greenland. They are found in the 

 greatest abundance in Ireland and Scotland. In some of the 

 rivers of the latter country, large rents are paid for these 

 fisheries. In England and Wales, at certain seasons, they 

 have been taken by thousands in a day. and on some occa- 

 sions in such abundance that they have been fed to the swine. 

 " In Scotland, they have been so plenty, that the farmer's 

 servants have stipulated to have them but twice a week for 

 food!" 



Smith, in his " History of the Fishes of Massachusetts," 

 relates the following : " Captain Charles Kendall, a respect- 

 able and intelligent navigator of Boston, assured us, that 

 when on the northwest coast of America, within a few years, 

 he stood in a small stream that came leaping down the crags 

 of a mountain, in which these delightful fishes were urging 

 their way in such astonishing crowds, with hardly water 

 enough to cover their backs, that he stood with an axe and 

 killed hundreds of them as they passed between his feet. He 

 saw birds of prey dive down from the long branches of trees 



