A TERROR OF THE SEAS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 May 1921, Page 9

A TERROR OF THE SEAS.

THE SALMON’S WONDERFUL STORY. If, in the month of December, you were to disturb the gravel beneath the clear -waters of the upper reaches of a great river, you might come across, some jsoft, pinkish objects, each about the size and shape of a pea. These are the eggs of the salmon, from which, in about two months, will emerge shoals of tiny, almost transparent, fish. In his earliest days the young salmon is too weak to search for food. He seeks a quiet spot and lives upon a portable supply of food with which thoughtful Nature had provided him. Attached to the under part of his body is a little bag, which contains all the nourishment he will need during the first few of his life. As he absorbs its contents the bag decreases in size, and when it finally disappears he has grown strong enough to find his own food. The little fish, which is called at this stage a “parr,” or “pink,” has now only one object in life—to obtain all the food he can. He seizes water insects, flies that float upon the surface, snails, worms, grubs, etc, A MYSTIC IMPULSE. Though his growth is rapid at first and though his appetite remains insatiable, he never reaches any great size so long as he stays in the river. Two years after his birth, when he is six or seven inches long, he begins to change his appearance entirely; his brown and yellow coat with its purple stripes and red spots changes into one of silver—he is putting on his sea livery! As soon as the change is complete the little “smolt,” as he is now called, moves down towards the sea. He travels until he ' reaches the brackish tidal waters, where he moves more slowly, in order to accustom himself to the change from fresh to salt water. Soon he is in the sea itself, where he will spend some wonderful years. He leaves the river as a smolt weighing only an ounce or two; at the end of one oi* two years he may return as a grilse, weighing four or five pounds; or he may spend three or four years in the sea, coming back to the river as a muture salmon whose weight may be anything from ten to eighty pounds! During his stay in the salt water he feeds so voraciously that he must be a veritable terror of the seas. He preys chiefly upon herrings, sand eels, youngwhiting shrimps and prawns. No fewer than six full-sized herrings have been found in the stomach of a salmon caught at sea.

But there comes a time when something which he cannot resist urges him to revisit the river where he was born. He moves slowly, making a gradual change from salt to fresh water. THE MARRIAGE MONTH. Once accustomed to the water of the river, he swims hard and fast upstream. No rush of water will stop him; even a waterfall ten feet high does not daunt him, for he clears it with a mighty spring, and after a short rest continues his journey. Up and up he must g% for it is only in the shallow gravelly stretches near the source of the river that he can breed. As he goes he selects a mate, and the two travel together. It is curious that so long as he remains in fresh water the mature salmon never m'akes a real meal.

As soon as the first frosts come the eggs are deposited on the gravel of the spawning bed. The female fish turns on her side during the operation, and flaps up the gravel with her tail. The cock, besides fertilising the eggs, keeps guard over her, and attacks any other fish that approaches. The eggs are left to look after themselves. Only a small proportion hatdh out, for they are regarded as a dainty morsel by other fish. Instead of being beautiful, the parent fish are now hideous. Dark and slimy, almost eel-like in shape, their scales are bruised and their fins torn by contract with the gravel. They remain for the next few months in the fresh water, gradually recovering a little of their former shape and color; then they migrate once more to the sea, and the cycle of their life history is confute.