THE SALMON FAMILY 65 
“ grilse kelt,” returning to sea early the next year con- 
siderably diminished in weight. ~” 
The grilse kelt in the sea becomes a salmon, and may 
return in another year, though more often in two years’ 
time, to spawn as a salmon, returning to the sea as a 
kelt. 
Salmon seldom spawn more than twice in their lives, 
and they have not, up to the present, been found to 
return after eight or nine years of age. Hither salmon 
do not spawn after this age, and therefore do not return 
to fresh water, or eight or nine years is their natural span 
of life. 
There are many irregularities in the journeyings of 
a salmon. For example, fish may not return to fresh 
water at all until the fifth, or even sixth, year of their 
lives. 
Salmon certainly grow very rapidly, but there has 
been considerable exaggeration as to their actual rate 
of growth. A spring fish coming into fresh water for 
the first time during the fifth year of life usually weighs 
twelve to twenty pounds, but as an exception a fish 
can weigh thirty-five pounds at the beginning of its 
fifth year; that is to say, it can put on weight at the 
rate of one pound per month in the sea, taking into 
account summer and winter growth. 
A journey into fresh water to spawn of course pre- 
vents the fish increasing in weight as fast as if he 
remained the whole time in the sea. 
The salmon found on the Pacific Coast of America, 
F 
