366 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
average length is from two and a half to three feet. 
Salmon feed freely on fish and mollusca, but digest their 
food so rapidly, that when opened their stomachs are gen- 
erally found empty. Their growth is proportionate to the 
quantity of food which they can procure; and hence when 
they reach the sea they increase in size in a marvellous 
manner, during a very short period. The successive 
stages of development of this fish are now supposed to be 
as follows :—the fry are hatched chiefly in the spring and 
early summer, and grow very slowly till they are about a 
year old, up to which time they are called salmon fry, 
and have several transverse bars on their sides. When 
these disappear, and the fish becomes uniformly silvery in 
color, it is about to commence its first migration to the 
sea, and is called a smolé. After the smolt has re- 
mained in the sea a few months, it returns to its native 
river, if possible, and is then greatly increased in size, 
generally weighing two or three pounds, or even consider- 
ably more. They are now called grilse; and after a 
second time descending to the sea, where they again 
rapidly add to their size and weight, they attain the full 
dignity and name of salmon. The female salmon deposits 
her ova in the gravelly beds of mountain streams, where 
she ploughs a groove with her tail, and is assisted by 
the male in the whole operation. The size of the salmon 
does not entirely depend upon the age, but on the nature 
of the river in which it is bred; some rivers never pro- 
duce large salmon, whilst others are remarkable for fish 
of great size. The salmon was originally found in all 
North American rivers eastward of the Delaware. It 
