256 SALMONIDiE. 



numbers as the wind and tide are stronger. It would 

 be difficult to find a more interesting example of the 

 wonderful instinct, perseverance, and strength for which 

 the Salmon is noted, than this long and difficult journey, 

 in which, stage after stage, they succeed in surmounting 

 rapids, which man, with all his boasted skill and science, 

 and the mighty aid of steam, is powerless to ascend. 



The apparent impossibility of any living thing swim- 

 ming up the rapids of the St. Lawrence led, not un- 

 naturally, first to the conjecture and then to the belief, 

 that the Salmon of Ontario must be entirely confined to 

 the lake and its tributaries. The argument that these 

 fish, when restricted solely to fresh water, cease to be 

 reproductive, led in the same manner to the story of the 

 existence of tracts of water in the lake itself so impreg- 

 nated with salt springs as to obviate the necessity of the 

 fish visiting the ocean. But the breeding of Salmon in 

 fresh water, if not common, is at any rate a fact of ascer- 

 tained occurrence. Scrope says, " It appears that salmon 

 will live and even breed in fresh water without ever 

 making a visit to the sea at all ;" and in support of this 

 opinion quotes Mr. Lloyd, who, in his work on " Field 

 Sports of the North of Europe," says, " Near Katrineburg 

 there is a valuable fishery for Salmon, ten or twelve 

 thousand of these fish being taken annually. These 

 salmon arc bred in a lake, and in consequence of cataracts 



