94 Salmon at the Antipodes. 



meanwhile, hovers about, and makes furious 

 attacks upon any other male that may come 

 near, and severe wounds are given and re- 

 ceived, often leading to fatal results. When 

 the redd, or nest, is partly formed, the female 

 deposits her eggs in the hollow or trough which 

 she has formed, and the male fish remains 

 close alongside, quivering with excitement, 

 and sheds his milt or spermatic fluid over the 

 ova, which become fertilized by the process. 

 The female covers up the ova by fanning the 

 gravel over them in the direction of the cur- 

 rent with her tail. This process is repeated 

 day after day, until all the ova are deposited, 

 the fishes retiring into some sheltered pool to 

 rest after each effort. When the spawning is 

 over, the fish become thin, poor, and unfit for 

 food, and many of the males, and some females, 

 die of exhaustion. In fact, it is asserted, that 

 where salmon have to make very long and 

 fatiguing journeys to deposit their spawn, as 

 happens in some of the American rivers, that 

 they are never known to return to the sea. 

 When the period of spawning approaches, the 

 male salmon has a cartilaginous excrescence 

 on the point of his under jaw, which, like the 



