78 GILPIN ON THE TROUT AND SALMON. 



Such is a description of this king of fish, as he appears from the 

 ocean. But it gives but a faint conception of the flashing hghts 

 thrown back from his sides of molten silver, upon the tender blue 

 of his back, or of the dying but fair lavender of his fins. Filled 

 with the only food upon which he thrives, the ova of various echino 

 dermata, or the flesh of the sand eels, his huge hack is swelled out 

 and rounded like a race horse. The flesh itself is tinted red, and 

 fat flakes lie thick in the fibres of every muscle. His courage and 

 strength are equal to his form and colour, — and he has need of them 

 all. A long and weary journey is before him, with scant food and 

 hard toil. He enters our rivers, beginning in March at the most 

 southerly aiad westward ones, to ascend the lakes to his spawning 

 grounds. Towards the end of June the run at Halifax is over. He 

 buries himself now in our lakes, and for a time nothing is seen of 

 him. On his passage up he takes the fly, and is seen leaping over 

 the natural obstacles or artificial barriers that arrest his progress. 

 From six to eight feet is his utmost perpendicular height. He is 

 often seen lingering in the deep holes of the streams which he is 

 ascending. He becomes lean and thin almost immediately on en- 

 tering the fresh waters. His flesh loses the lively red tint and 

 exquisite flavor, his silvery sides turn yellow, and his steel blue 

 back a dingy black, reddish diffused patches stain his sides and 

 head and cheek. In the male, changes much more characteristic 

 are stealing over him, the upper jaw lengthens, teeth both more 

 numerous and larger appear; an eagle-like hook is formed; the 

 lower jaw lengthens, curves up, is armed with supplementary teeth, 

 and a nob or hook of gelatinous substance sprouts out of its end, 

 which fits into a hollow of the upper jaw. 



On the 10th July, 1865, I noticed many large salmon taken from 

 the fresh water river, Shubenacaclie. They had been some time in 

 fresh Avater, had lost their blue and silver hue, and pink flesh tint, 

 and had also lost their teeth, some of them almost entirely, others 

 partially. Their jaws were arched, the bone evidently absorbed. I 

 was much puzzled to account for so many old fish being taken at 

 once, and only in fresh water, since such fish were never knoAvn 

 from the sea. On the 2Gth November, 1865, M. BroAvn, Esq., 

 Halifax, sent me a salmon, a male fish, weighing perhaps sixteen 

 pounds, whose head and jaws were so peculiar as to need an exact 



