THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



tinct. No subject has been more studied and -written about, 

 and few subjects are so little understood. 



Fresh, water is essential to the production of the young. The 

 eggs will not hatch in salt water, nor will the newly hatched young 

 live in it. When the fish attain the upper reaches of the river, 

 jumping falls, dashing up inconceivable rapids, they select 

 gravelly shallows and deposit their eggs which are at once vivified 

 by the milt of the male. 



The eggs are preyed upon by many enemies. There is 

 scarcely a fish that will not eat them, and but a small percentage 

 of the original deposit are hatched, in from eighty to one hundred 

 and forty days, more or less, depending upon the temperature. 

 The male and female salmon now return to the sea, in poor 

 condition, known as kelts, or spent fish. 



The young at birth become victims to various enemies, from 

 trout, grayling, perch, even snakes in America. They are known 

 as parr. They move slowly down the river, but remain in fresh 

 water for unknown reasons from one to three years. Half the 

 progeny of a single fish, it is estimated, leave the river at the end 

 of the first year ; two-thirds possibly of the remainder enter the 

 sea in the second year, and the small residuum leave at the third 

 year. The parrs are easily recognized as they are striped, 

 like the swordfish, with blue bars. The parr begins to change 

 as the impulse to migrate seizes it ; the bars fade away or are 

 hidden, and the fish takes on a coat of brilUant silver, becomes a. 

 smolt, and enters the sea — the winter home of its ancestors. The 

 sea acts hke a sahne ehxir to the fish, and it may grow and 

 develop in an extraordinary fashion within a brief period. Thus 

 a smolt has been known to return to the river that it left in May 

 or June, in August, or by the first of September, weighing any- 

 where from two, or three, to ten pounds. 



Such a rettirning fish is known as a grilse. It is now sexually 

 mature, and is on its way to the upper reaches of the river, 

 the same one or some more convenient stream, to deposit spawn, 

 which is accomphshed in November or December. To follow 

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