45 2 
AMERICAN FISHES . 
in its symmetrical beauty, its brilliancy, its agility, and its pluck. I 
have had one of four pounds to leap from the water ten times, and higher 
and further than a Salmon. Woe to the angler who attempts, without 
giving line, to hold one even of three pounds ; he does it at the risk of his 
casting line, or his agile opponent tears a piece from its jaw or snout in its 
desperate effort to escape.” 
Mr. Atkins calls attention to the fact that the great run of Grilse which 
is so prominent a feature in Canada and Europe is almost entirely absent 
in the rivers of the United States, the fish not returning until they have 
become adult. In rivers where Grilse are found, the Salmon always pre¬ 
cede them in their ascent, for the former do not enter fresh water until 
toward the end of summer. 
A SMOLT. 
Who can wonder at the angler’s enthusiasm over “ a Salmon fresh run 
in love and glory from the sea?” Hear Christopher North’s praise of a 
perfect fish : 
“ She has literally no head ; but her snout is in her shoulders. That is 
the beauty of a fish, high and round shoulders, short waisted, no loins, but 
all body and not long of terminating—the shorter still the better—in a 
tail sharp and pointed as Diana’s, when she is crescent in the sky.” 
Mr. Ivilbourne’s painting in Scribner’s “ Game Fishes of North Ameri¬ 
ca ’ ’ represents a thirty-pound fish drawn to a scale of one-fourth, The 
largest on record was one of eighty-three pounds, brought to London in 
1821 ; the Scotch fish rarely exceed twenty-five pounds. Perley speaks 
of a sixty-pounder taken long ago in the Restigouche; in 1852 many of 
forty, and one of forty-seven pounds, were caught in the Cascapediac. 
Mr. Frederick Curtis’s score for York River, Canada, July 7, 1871, shows 
nine fish ranging from seventeen to thirty-four and averaging twenty-six 
and a quarter pounds. Another, for the same locality, July, 1876, shows 
