LIFE HISTORY AND HABITS 



to their former position in the current, protected 

 by the backwater of the stones on the bottom. 

 They behave exactly as a large salmon does when 

 it takes a wet fly. 



Toward evening parr may be seen taking small 

 flies and other insects from the surface. They 

 come up and make a round ring on the surface 

 just as do the large fish. Sometimes they leap 

 clear of the water. One evening while watching 

 them with my son and daughter, we threw pieces 

 of straw or very small chips of wood on the surface 

 to see what they would do. In many cases they 

 came up close to them and did not take them, just 

 as the salmon often refuses the fly; in other in- 

 stances they seized the chip and carried it below 

 the surface, sometimes making off a foot or more 

 before ejecting it. This corresponds with the 

 way salmon carry a fly in their mouths for some 

 distance imder water. These little parr were 

 getting their education on insects. My guide 

 told me this summer that he had several times 

 foimd maple seeds with their little wings in the 

 stomach of salmon, and this was the only thing 

 he had ever found there. The larger parr seem to 

 feed, to a great extent, on surface insects and 

 nymphs rising from the bottom on their way to 



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