SALMONOIDEiE. 153 



as constant, as among the higher animals. These marked grilse were unfortunately 

 killed ; but next year it is proposed to return them to the river with an additional 

 mark, and endeavour to take them again a second season." 



The spawning season commences in most of the British streams in October, is 

 at its height in November, and continues through December, comparatively few 

 salmon spawning in January, February, or March. It is necessary that the dif- 

 ferent kinds or species of salmon should be more fully made out before we can 

 refer to the history of the Common salmon the statements to be found in authors 

 of the great differences in the spawning seasons in different rivers*. 



The salmon has many enemies, of whom man is undoubtedly the chief, for its 

 numbers diminish rapidly as civilization and the arts advance on the banks of the 

 rivers it frequents. Notwithstanding the proverbial f activity of this fish, it is 

 hard pushed in its own element by several of the mammalia. Captain Cartwright 

 saw a bear taking salmon in the mouth of one of the Labrador rivers by diving in 

 deep water J ; the otter too, a well-known river poacher, makes great havock 

 among the salmon of all ages ; and the seal has been observed, on the coast of 

 Scotland, coursing a salmon like a greyhound in chase of a hare, turning it on 

 every attempt it made to get to seaward, and finally securing it through the exer- 

 tion of superior strength and sagacity. The following anecdote is told by the Rev. 

 Mr. Hamilton, of a dog leaguing with man against this fish. " In riding from Port 



* Dr. Arthur Young informs us, that " in all the rivers which run into the Ban, the salmon spawn about the beginning 

 of August, and as soon as they have done swim to the sea, where they stay till January, when they begin to return to 

 fresh water, and continue doing so till August, in which voyage they are taken. The nets are set in the beginning of 

 January, but by Act of Parliament no nets or weirs can be kept down after the 12th of August. The young salmon are 

 called growls, and grow at a rate which I should suppose scarce any fish commonly known equals ; for within the year 

 some of them will come to sixteen and eighteen pounds, but in general ten or twelve pounds : such as escape the first year's 

 fishery are salmon ; and at two years old will generally weigh twenty to twenty-five pounds. This year's fishery (1776) 

 has proved the greatest that ever was known, yielding four hundred tons of fi^h ; and they had the largest haul, taking 

 one thousand four hundred and fifty-two salmon at one drag of a single net." — (Tour in Ireland.) 



Linnsus states that the salmon-fishery of the Laxholms, or Salmon islands, in Lulean Lapland, commences " a fort- 

 night before Midsummer (June 10th) and ends on St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, and that during that space of time 

 the salmon keep asctnding the river. After that day none of the fishermen remain. Few of the fish escape being taken, 

 so as to return down the river. At Michaelmas (29th of September) the fishermen come here again, when they catch a 

 smaller sort of salmon." {Lachesis Lapponica, ii., p. 118.) 



Leems relates that in the river Alten, which has its rise in the remotest mountains of Lapland, the fishery begins on the 

 festival of St. John (June 24th), at which time the salmon are very fat, and so lar^e that a tun can scarcely hold sixteen, 

 but those which enter the river as the autumn is approaching, are of a much smaller size and also lean. In theThana, the 

 principal river of Eastern Finmark, the season lasts from the beginning of spring until two weeks after the festival of St. 

 John the Baptist (July 8th). The fish in this river are peculiar for their breadth and fatness, and are accounted the very 

 best of their kind. (Leems, Journey into Danish Lapland. An. 1767.) Sir William Jardine, in speaking of the spawning 

 time, remarks that " The northern rivers, with little exception, are the earliest, a fact well known in the London markets." 

 " It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the spawning season is only between October and February. In many rivers it 

 would commence in the end of August, if the grounds and entrance to the rivers were left open and unmolested." Jau- 



DINE, I. C. 



+ " Dicilur namque salmo a saltu." Oi.aus Magnus, Hist. Sept., p. 523. 

 | G. Cartwright, Sixteen Yenrt 1 Residence in Labrador. 



