and the Maritime Provinces. "3 



fry would thrive in lakes and ponds in which trout and ordinary salmon 

 could not exist, and in maturing would soon furnish not only an abundance 

 of acceptable food, but would give anglers recreation in waters which now 

 contain nothing but insipid or worthless species. Unlike the Atlantic sal- 

 mon the Hucho spawns in the spring, and the eggs mature much earlier 

 than those of the other species." 



"The eggs of the salmon are wonderfully tough," said I, when the 

 Judge had ended. " Nature provided wisely for their preservation in the 

 rough usage they are subjected to among the stones and pebbles of the 

 river bed. Frank Buckland, one of the most careful of observers, in a 

 series of experiments with salmon eggs, found by placing iron weights on 

 individual eggs that they were not crushed until he had placed no less 

 than five pounds, six ounces on them." 



" It 's wonderful," said the Judge ; " but, as we said last night, Nature 

 looks out pretty well for all her creations. 



" It 's always seemed strange to me that sea salmon do not generally 

 feed while in fresh water. I suppose I have examined the stomachs of 

 hundreds, and in none did I find food." 



" Probably that is because they do not find the food to which they are 

 accustomed," I replied; "yet that is not the exact reason, for there are 

 shiners and dace in the salmon rivers, and they resemble in appearance, 

 somewhat, the smelts and small herrings upon which they feed in the 

 ocean. We know that salmon have been caught on trawls, baited with 

 herring, in twenty fathoms of water, at George's banks and elsewhere ; and 

 we are informed by Dr. G. Suckley * that in the bays of Puget sound large 

 numbers are taken by the Indians by ' trolling.' A small herring, four or 

 five inches long, is tied to a hook ; some six or eight feet from the bait a 

 small round stone is fastened to the line; the stone acts as a 'sinker,' 

 keeping the bait sunk some six or eight feet below the surface while being 

 ' trolled.' The Indian, in a light canoe, paddles about slowly and noise- 

 lessly, trolling the line with a jerking motion, and not unfrequently taking, 

 in the course of a couple of hours, several handsome fish, weighing from 

 ten to thirty pounds each. The time chosen for this work is generally the 

 two hours succeeding daybreak and an hour or two towards evening." 



" Mr. J. Parker Whitney, an enthusiastic angler, whose camp on one of 

 the Rangeley lakes is a familiar object to all frequenters of those waters, 

 has also been very successful in trolling in salt water for sea salmon, and 

 is the first white man who has made a record, one of his catches being 

 seventeen salmon taken in one day at Monterey, Cal., whose aggregate 

 weight was 274 pounds. They were taken with an eight-ounce rod, and 

 his method of fishing is similar to that followed by the ' trollers ' on the 

 Maine and other large New England lakes for ' landlocks.' ' 



*Vol. XII., Pacific Railroad Reports. 



