404 
ORDERS OF FISHES— TROUT ANT) SALMON 
year 1899 are of universal interest, 
as follows: 
Of Pacific Salmon, 
Of Pacific Salmon, 
Alaska 
^ California, ^ 
-j Oregon and r 
( Washington > 
They are one with a fifteen-foot rod weighing twenty 
ounces, with a Silver Doctor at the end of five- 
produced 118,622,230 pounds, worth $6,773,876 
produced 130,004,835 pounds, worth 3,504,622 
To-day the question is, shall we permit this 
industry to go by default, and be ruined in a few 
years? Or shall we conserve it sensibly and 
properly, both for ourselves and future genera- 
tions? 
The Atlantic Coast Salmon. — It is now 
necessary to call this fish the Atlantic Salmon 1 
in order to distinguish it from the Pacific species; 
but for two centuries it held its place in litera- 
ture as the Salmon. It once inhabited many 
L. > , ; 
Mil 
Drawn by W. L. Steward. 
THE 
SEBAGO SALMON. 
portions of northwestern Europe, and in some 
it still survives. 
In North America, its natural habitat was orig- 
inally from the mouth of the Hudson River 
northward throughout the costal rivers of New 
England, Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
Newfoundland and Labrador to Greenland. 
Once very abundant in the Connecticut River, it 
was driven out of that stream in 1798 by the 
erection of a sixteen-foot dam in Miller’s River, 
100 miles from the sea, which cut off the fish 
from their spawning beds. In 1872 there were 
twenty-eight rivers in the United States which 
once contained Salmon, but from twenty of them 
that fish had totally disappeared. To-day the 
nearest Atlantic Salmon are found in Maine 
and northern New Hampshire, New Brunswick 
and Nova Scotia. 
As a game fish, Salmo salar is fit to rank with 
the kings of the animal world. He who catches 
1 Sal' mo sa'lar. 
248,627,065 $10,278,498 
foot leader, and brings it to the gaff, may well 
call himself an angler. So far as I know, this 
is the largest fish that rises to a fly. 
The greatest weight on record for the At- 
lantic Salmon is 83 pounds. The maximum 
weight of those now taken in Maine is about 25 
pounds, and the average is about 10 pounds. 
In 1900, the catch of the Bangor anglers in Pe- 
nobscot Pool was 67 fish, weighing 970 pounds. 
The largest weighed 234 pounds, and the average 
was nearly 144 pounds. 
The most wonderful thing about 
the Atlantic Salmon is its leaping 
power, in surmounting waterfalls that 
lie in its course to its spawning 
grounds. To a fish of this species, a 
rock-studded cascade three hundred 
feet long and thirty feet high, down 
which the water plunges and tears 
with murderous speed and violence, 
is a fine highway, up which it gayly 
promenades without pause or acci- 
dent. 
But a waterfall, with a perpendicular drop of 
ten or twelve feet, is a more serious proposition, 
and requires a special effort. To clear such a 
barrier, the Salmon makes, a rush in the pool 
below it, leaps out of the water, and if possible 
lands on the edge of the fall. If he falls short 
by no more than one or two feet, but strikes the 
descending torrent squarely head on, so that he 
is not at once swept down, it is said that by a 
strong flirt of the tail and a wriggle of the body, 
the gallant fish actually can force itself on up to 
the edge of the fall, and over it into the coveted 
waters of the upper level. 
The following graphic description of the leap 
of the Salmon is from the pen of Dr. Robert T. 
Morris, whose opportunities for observing and 
photographing the scenes he describes have been 
of the best : 2 
“ It is a most impressive and inspiring sight to 
watch the untamed Salmon on a wild river mak- 
2 Country Life Magazine, 1903, p. 356. 
