470 FATUEAL HISTOEY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



and riches, which have both their winter and summer houses) this fresh water for summer and the 

 salt water for winter to spend his life in."' Most of his tribe, however, are peculiarly fresh-water, 

 fishes, though several share his sea-dwelling habit, and others, like the Brook-trout, descend into salt 

 •water, when not prevented by barriers ol temperature.^ All of the family run into very shoal water, 

 and usually to the sources of streams, to deposit their eggs, and all of them seek food and cool tem- 

 peratures in the largest and deepest bodies of water accessible. I am inclined to the view that 

 the natural habitat of, the Salmon is in the fresh waters, the more so since there are so many 

 instances — such as that of the Stormontfleld Ponds in England— where it has been confined for years 

 in lakes without apparent detriment. The " Land-locked" or "Fresh-water" Salmon, known also in 

 the Saguenay region as " Winninish," in the Shubeuacadie and other rivers of Western Nova Scotia 

 ^s the " Grayling," and in different parts of Maine as " Schoodic Trout," " Sebago Trout," or " Dwarf 

 ;Salmon," probably never visit salt water, finding ample food and exercise in the lakes and large 

 rivers. In some regions in Maine and New Brunswick their access to salt water is cut off by dams, 

 and some investigators have claimed that Land-locked Salmon did not exist there until these 

 iobstructions were built, some fifty years ago. This hypothesis, however, is not necessary, for 

 in the Saguenay the Winninish have easy, unobstructed access to the sea. The Salmon of Lake 

 Ontario and its tributaries are not thought to enter salt water, and there are similar instances of 

 laud-locking in the lakes of Northern Sweden. In the Maine lakes Salmon feed on minnows 

 and other small fishes. The Salmon while it remains in the sea or in the brackish estuaries 

 takes particular delight in feeding on crustaceans and their eggs, small shrimps, and young crabs. 

 When in tlie rivers they eat but little, though they are at times eager enough for food, as testify 

 rtheir voracious rushes at the angler's fly-hook. The absenteeism of the Salmon is due principally 

 to the dearth of desirable food in the rivers. The young Gsh stay in fresh water for one, and 

 frequently two, years. When they pass down to the sea they weigh but a few ounces. They find 

 ■congenial food and begin to grow rapidly. The broad world of ocean affords them new opportu- 

 nities for adventure and self-advancement, and it is only when summoned by the duties of family 

 life that they return within the narrow limits of the old home. When Salmon live in the lakes 

 they prey upon minnows and other small fishes, but those of the sea delight also in small crusta- 

 ■ceans and their eggs, to which they owe the vivid color of their flesh. The habits of successive 

 generations Tiecome hereditary traits, and the differences in their life-histories seem to justify the 

 •claim of the Land-locked Salmon to be regarded as a variety of Salmo salar, though it is hardly to 

 be distinguished except by its lesser size and some slight peculiarities in coloration. It is to be 

 ■designated as Salmo salar, variety sebago. Although both originated in the same primitive stock, 

 it is not probable that one changes to the other except after many generations, under the influence 

 of forced changes in their environment. 



Eepeodtjction. — Although, like the Trout, and unlike shad, Salmon spawn on a falling tem- 

 perature, not depositing their eggs until the water is at least as cold as 50°, yet they seem to 

 «nter the rivers on a rising temperature. Yarrell remarked that English rivers issuing from large 

 lakes afford early Salmon, while rivers swollen by melting snows in the spring months are later in 

 their season of producing fish, and yield their supply when the lake rivers are beginning to fail. 

 In America the Southern streams seem to yield the earliest fish. In the Connecticut Ihey appear 

 in April and May, in the Merrimack in May and June, in the Penobscot most abundantly in June 



'Walton: Compleat Angler. 



2 The notioa of marking Salmon is not a new one. Walton, writing two hundred and twenty-five years ago, speaks 

 of observations made by tying ribbons in the tails of some number of young Salmon -which were taken subsequently 

 at the same place, "which hath inclined many to think f at every Salmon usually returns to the same river in 

 which it was bred, as young pigeons taken out of the same dove-cote have also been observed to do." 



