87 
Here it may be well to remind ourselves that it is for the one 
purpose of keeping up their race, that salmon come to our shores 
at all, and we are apt to consider that we know all about the 
life of a salmon from these periodical visits. The question has 
often been asked, “ How long do salmon live? ” It is quite 
impossible to answer this question with certainty, inasmuch as 
we only know the salmon during its fertile days. What becomes 
of it after the days of its fertility are exhausted—no one 
knows.. It may still exist in the sea for many years after leaving 
our shores, and grow to much larger dimensions than we are 
accustomed to; so that because we only know it, at the most, as 
an eight-year-old fish, there is no reason why it should not ex¬ 
ceed this limit by a number of years. Now all these different 
stages in a salmon’s life are well marked on the scale of a fish 
in the following manner:— 
With the aid of a good lens you will observe first of all a 
centre, which we will call the centre of growth, formed, let me 
say, in the very early stages of the fish’s life. Round this centre 
are formed lines of growth—just according to the growth of the 
fish. Mr. Malloch, in his book on the Salmon, says that it makes 
sixteen of these lines of growth in the course of twelve months ; 
just as a tree makes one ring for each year of growth, so the 
salmon makes sixteen. Now, with all respect for Mr. Malloch’s 
assertion, I am inclined to differ from him. My experience teaches 
me that a salmon, during the first year of its sojourn in the salt 
water, makes twenty lines of growth and more, owing 
to voracious feeding, and afterwards these lines diminish 
in number as the fish grows older. It is the same with sea-fish. 
These lines of growth in the river life of the fish appear to be very 
close together for, say, a period of two years—when food is 
scarce in the river—and consequently the growth is slow, but 
immediately the smolt migrates to salt water, there is a very rapid 
change, owing to the abundance of food, and the lines 
are much wider apart. This condition of things obtains during 
the first summer in the sea, but when the water gets colder in 
winter, and food becomes scarce, the growth becomes stunted, 
and the lines of growth appear like a dark band on the scale, in 
consequence of being much closer together, and this is called the 
winter band or hibernation mark, so that the summer lines of 
growth and this winter band complete one year of the fish’s life. 
This, then, is the way by w r hich you can calculate the age of a 
salmon. 
This process is what goes on in the sea, but a very different 
thing happens when the fish returns to the fresh water of the 
river. The chief run of salmon from the sea occurs in the early 
spring, and at this time the finest fish for the table are caught in 
the nets along the coast and at the mouths of some of our finest 
rivers. These salmon arrive in the very finest stage 
of perfection. They enter our rivers, bound for the spawning 
beds, which means a journey of many miles before they reach 
