234 AMERICAN ANGLER 5 BOOK. 



rivers above named, amongst which they were distributed in 

 due proportions. Mr. Young was the managing director on 

 the occasion. In the wonted season all the fish spawned, each 

 in its respective river. Now, mark one of the consequences : 

 Salmon at present, and ever since, come regularly to spawn, 

 traversing the lake to do so, in all these heretofore Salmon- 

 less rivers. Nay, more, the fish hatched in the Terry, at least 

 those that survive long enough, return to the Terry ; and the 

 young of the other three rivers return from the sea to them, 

 each Grilse or Salmon entering never-failingly the stream 

 that gave it birth. What wonderful and unerring instinct ! 

 One might think that they would remain in the River Shin, 

 spawn where their ancestors had spawned ; but no, they leave 

 their own natal shallows, pass down the lake, through the 

 River Shin, along the kyle of Sunderland, to the sea; and there 

 having become adolescent, they retrace their route, and, aftei 

 necessary rests on their long voyage, very frequently on the 

 spots of their parents' nativity, they revisit for the first time, 

 the scenes of their birth and infancy. Revisit them — for 

 what ? Being nubile, to perform, the nuptial rights, which 

 they do where their forefathers begat them, and so they go on 

 increasing and multiplying in colonies heretofore tenantless 

 of Salmon, ever since volcanic action called from the 'vasty 

 deep,' the mountains and rivers of northern Caledonia !" 



On our coast Salmon begin to leave the deeps and 

 come into the bays and estuaries in May, and prepare for 

 their residence in fresh rivers by spending a few weeks in 

 the brackish water, where they still find food, though, of less 

 nutritive quality, such as Shrimp, Capelins, and Smelts. My 

 friend, John Chamberlain, says, he once speared a Salmon at 

 the entrance of Bathurst harbor, in which he found eleven 

 Capelins. 



After these fish have thus gradually prepared themselves 



