SALMONOIDE^l. 197 



October the Attihawmeg quits the lakes and enters the rivers, for the purpose of 

 depositing its spawn. It ascends the stream in the night-time, and returns to the 

 lake as soon as it has spawned. Dr. Todd informed me that it enters Severn 

 River from Lake Huron about the 25th of October, and retires to the depths of the 

 lake again by the 10th of November; but that in some rapid rocky rivers of that 

 lake individuals are taken throughout the year. A few spawn in the summer. It is 

 a gregarious fish, and resorts to different parts of a lake according to the season of 

 the year, its movements being in all probability regulated by its supply of food. 

 In winter the fisheries are generally established in deep water, remote from the 

 shore ; towards the breaking up of the ice they are moved near to the outlets of 

 the lake, and in the summer comparatively few Attihawmeg are caught, except 

 what are speared in the rivers. After the spawning period the fall-fishery, as 

 it is termed, is more productive in shallow bays and on banks near the shore. 

 I was informed, in the fur countries, that this fish preys on insects, and that 

 it occasionally, though rarely, takes a hook baited with a small piece of meat. 

 The stomachs of some taken in Pine Island Lake, under the ice, contained a 

 dark-coloured earth mixed with the slender fibrils of vegetable roots, and a few 

 soft insects or larvae like white worms. Dr. Todd found fresh-water shells and 

 small fishes in the stomachs of the Lake Huron Attihawmeg ; indeed, shelly 

 mollusca (Helix, Planorbis, Lymneus, Paludina, &c.) appear to be a favourite 

 food of several trout and coregoni, both in Europe and America. The Attihawmeg 

 has some resemblance to the herring in the structure of its jaAvs and gill-covers, 

 and, like that fish, it dies speedily when taken out of the water. The usual 

 weight of the Attihawmeg is from two to three pounds, and, when very fat, it 

 attains to seven or eight pounds ; but these large fish are confined to particular 

 localities. In certain lakes it reaches a much greater size, having been taken in 

 Lake Huron of the weight of thirteen pounds, and in Manito Lake, it is said, of 

 twenty pounds. The largest seen by Mr. Hutchins, in the vicinity of Hudson's 

 Bay, weighed between four and five pounds, measured twenty inches in length, and 

 four in depth. One of seven pounds weight, caught in Lake Huron, was twenty- 

 seven inches long. 



The Attihawmeg is taken in the winter time in gill-nets set under the ice. Each 

 net is fifty or sixty fathoms long, and of a depth proportionate to that of the water, 

 and in setting it for the first time a series of holes are made through the ice, at 

 such a distance apart, that a long stick, can be readily passed in the water from one 

 to the other : a line, rather longer than the net to which it is fastened, being attached 

 to the stick, is carried along and brought out at the extreme hole. The net being 



