And yet, in spite of all these drawbacks, the salmon
season of 1903 has been the very best known in the memory of man ! Mr. Henry Ffennell in his annual summary in the Times of the results of salmon-fishing names rivers in nearly every part of England and Scotland in which an unprecedented number of salmon have been seen ; and though in Ireland the con- tinual floods have prevented both rod-fishing and netting in a great degree, and so lowered the number of fish taken, the fact that they were in the rivers in unusual quantities can scarcely be doubted. Mr. Ffennell says :--" For a great portion of the year the fish were pushing inland from the sea in goodly numbers ; while towards the end, and for some time after fishing had' closed, what might without exaggeration be called a mighty rush of salmon took pine° along a number of English, Scotch, and Irish waters Notwithstanding the persistent lamentation which we often hear in respect to 'dying salmon rivers' and impoverished fisheries, it is ro less true that salmon absolutely swarth in vast multitudes at certain places round our coast." We are not quite prepared to go as far as Mr. Ffennell in regarding the alarm recently felt about the prospects of rivers and fisheries as exaggerated. The outlook was in truth most serious. But his opinion that the facts of 1903 "give abundant ground for contemplative reflection on various unsolved salmon problems" will be questioned by no one.
The Tyne, the Wear, the Esk-, the Wye, the Conway, and other Welsh rivers, including even the Usk, and, further north, the Ribble, the Eden, the West Cumberland Derwent, awl Scotch waters, have all been prolific of fish. On the Tweed one rod caught twenty-one salmon in a single day. Any one who has fished at all can readily appreciate how numerous the salmon were, and what it would mean to salmon rivers generally if the supply of fish seen this year could be kept up or increased. When Mr. Ffennell writes of a "mighty rush of salmon," he speaks comparatively only. What were seen even in this excellent season were probably a mere sprinkling compared with what might have entered our rivers had perfectly natural conditions prevailed. On the Fraser River, for example, and other North American waters flowing into the Pacific, the " rush " of salmon is on a scale almost inconceivable compared with the driblets of fish which enter European streams to spawn. The fish as they approach the narrower upper waters have been said at times to push those nearest the bank out of the water. Whether this be a fact or not, it is certain, that the salmon are seen in these rivers swimming in shoals, instead of making their way up singly or in pairs.
Given that there is sufficient water for the fish to swim and to spawn in, there are almost no natural limits to the number of salmon which can be in temporary occupation of fresh water. In regard to other fish, such as trout tor grayling, the food-supply limits the number absolutely. But the salmon does all its serious feeding in the sea, goes up to the spawning grounds practically without feeding at all, and if there is a good head of water, gets out of the river and down to 'the sea as quicklY as it can after the
spawning, though if it cannot it mainly eats other fish, and largely the young salmon smolts of the previous year.
A question which must occur to every one interested in the history of salmon is,—" Whence did the fish come which appeared in such unusual numbers in 1903 ? " English salmon are not believed to cross the North Sea, but to keep to the English and Scotch coasts. Consequently their 'numbers can only be recruited from fish bred in our riven. On the other hand, there have been loud and general corn- ' plaints for years that very few fish have been bred in our streams. Whence, then, did the stock come ? Is there a reserve of salmon in the• sea which have for years refused • to come up into the fresh water? Or must we suppose that the young fish which did hatch from the eggs have been unusually fortunate in escaping their enemies and getting down to the salt water ? Mr. Ffennell seems inclined to believe that the salmon "hang about" at certain favourite places off the coast, and that they may or may not " run " in some seasons, while in others they all make up their ' minds to do so. This is quite possible ; yet the instinct of reproduction in the fish is so strong as to render it • doubtful whether they could in any case resist making a • trial of the river at the right season. There seem two strong reasons for supposing that the salmon in the sea round our coasts have been recruited by means capable of explanation. The August and early autumn of 1902 were very wet, and the rivers unusually full, though nothing like so full or so flooded
• as in the abnormal August and autumn of 1903. In the former year a very exceptional number of salmon came up the rivers. It was, in fact, the first year of what we may hope, quit salmon, to be a new and better era. More grilse and peel young salmon making their first visit to fresh water from the sea) were seen in that year even than in the past season.
But it does not seem possible to prove that the same salmon, if all things are favourable, does not sometimes come up a river to spawn twice in a season. It certainly is known that the • recuperative powers of the salmon in the sea transcend any other recorded examples of animal vitality and growth. Among the best known instances is the fish caught going down .to the sea as a kelt, or spawned salmon, which at that time
• weighed 10i lb., and, after being marked, was caught in the river coming up from the sea five weeks and two days later :weighing 201 lb. ! With such astonishing vital powers a second spawning in a season in which the conditions, not only for running up the rivers, but also for corning down again, were favourable, would not be in the least surprising, for the salmon after a month or two's refreshment in the sea is literally a "new fish." There is twice as much of it, and , every fibre and tissue must in some sense be renewed. But besides these chances of rapid growth and double-spawning on the part of the mature fish there are the strange facts of arrested growth and arrested migration seen in the parr— young salmon six inches long—in the rivers. The elasticity and possibilities of their lives are quite as remarkable. Of the parr of a certain year, some turn into silvery smolts, and go down to the sea in the same year in which they were hatched. But others stay up in the river for one, or even two years, before they do so. Yet the little male parr can fertilise the ova of the big female salmon. In reference to the possibility of a sudden increase in the supply of salmon in a given year, these river-staying parr can play a very important part. Supposing that the condition of the rivers in 1902 was such as to set all or most of the parr in motion towards the sea, instead of only one-third or one-half of them, their wonderful sea. change and sea growth would turn them all into grilse or peel in a few weeks or months, and these again would be good salmon by the end of 1903. It would seem just possible that this increased migration of parr, or rather of smolts, for the fish does not enter the salt water till it has exchanged its parr's brown and spotted jacket for a 'smolt's garb of silver, did take place in 1902, and that the large stock of salmon seen in 1903 and early in the present year may have resulted from this, while a wonderful series of floods and full rivers gave them unequalled opportunities of ascending the rivers to the spawning grounds. This, again, would give a great supply of young fish for 1904. It may well be hoped that this will be the case. The salmon is, literally speak- lug, the finest of all fish, and one of the finest of created
beings. There is none more beautifully proportioned, or more exquisitely coloured with shining silver and bright enamel. It is the incarnation of strength and vitality. It will travel fifteen hundred miles up the Yukon to reach the spawning grounds, and rush up the Rhine to the falls of Schaffhausen. In the great pools where the salmon lie " waiting for a call" from the mountain floods they remain with steadfast and undaunted resolution, however long the tedium of their enforced delay. It is said of a determined man that he waits for his object until his hair grows grey. The brave salmon waits until his scales are almost red, without food, without excitement, month after month, only relieving his feelings by set and solemn leaps upwards into the air, perhaps to look about him, before he falls with sonorous plunge on to the lap of the slowly moving pool. Then at last comes the flood, and up against its rushing waters the salmon speeds instantly, resolutely, and rejoicing; throwing itself out from time to time, in solemn exuberance, now that it sees the end in sight, but turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, and never looking at the brightest salmon-fly, even when the water has cleared, so long as it is a travelling fish !
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