THIS most delicious fish, which is both an inhabitant of the seas and the rivers, rarely exceeds three feet in length, but ranges from ten to upwards of seventy pounds in weight. The back is of a dark-blue colour, spotted, declining into a silver-grey on the sides, and white on the belly: the fins are comparatively small. Salmon quit the seas and ascend the rivers throughout the summer season; and so strong is the impulse that urges them to this progress, that they ascend the most rapid rivers for many miles, and spring up over cataracts of great height. Having reached a suitable sta

tion, they pair, and in company proceed to make a furrow in the gravelly bed of the shallow or running water, and into this furrow the milt and roe are deposited, and covered, an operation that occupies nearly a fortnight: the eggs sometimes amount to 20,000. When the fish have spawned, they betake themselves to the deep pools, and then proceed to the sea, the males commencing the journey earlier than the females. The young leave the spawning-place about March, and proceed along the easy water at the margin of the river, until they reach the sea. The salmon is entirely a northern fish, been found both at Greenland and Kamtschatka, but never so far south as the Mediterranean. The principal salmon fisheries in Europe are in the rivers, or on the seacoasts adjoining the large rivers of Scotland, England, and Ireland. Those in the river Tweed are, perhaps, the most extensive these, several years ago, were let at many thousand pounds per annum. In the sea, the food of the salmon is said to be sand-eels; in the rivers, it is minnows and other small fish.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENES AND SKETCHES.. NO. 1.-DISCOVERY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. THAT vast portion of the world called America was unknown to the ancients. For hundreds, nay thousands of years, the people of Europe were not aware that there was such a country. It was first discovered by Columbus in February, 1493; and was afterwards found to consist of two vast con

tinents joined together about the middle by a narrow neck of land. Hence it was called the New World. And indeed it deserved the name, for its land and islands, with its seas and oceans, cover as much space on a map as the other half of the globe.

North America is the upper continent, in the lower part of which are the United States, and above them, in a colder region, is British Canada. Higher up than Canada, reaching away to the Polar Seas, is a vast wild region of woods, rocks, rivers, and lakes, where bears, wolves, and foxes, beavers, elks, and buffaloes, wild geese and ducks, are found in great numbers.

This part of North America was first discovered in the reign of King Henry VII. by a Venetian merchant residing in Bristol, who, at his own expense, embarked on the discovery. A writer of those days says, "In the year of our Lord, 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son Sebastian, discovered that country, which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June, about five o'clock in the morning."

The Portuguese and the French followed, and so did the English. At length the whole region became subject to England, under whose dominion it remains.

Within the last one hundred years many attempts have been made to explore this wide, wild, and desolate region; and when we tell you that it is all covered with snow and ice for nine months of the year, you may be sure such attempts must be attended with great perils and privations. The change from winter to spring and summer, which almost

come together, has been thus described :-" The commencement of their voyage was propitious; and under a serene sky, with a keen but healthy air, the bark glided through some beautiful scenery. On the west side of the river the ground rose in a gently-ascending lawn, broken at intervals by abrupt precipices, and extending in a rich woodland perspective as far as the eye could reach. This magnificent amphitheatre presented groves of poplar in every direction, whose openings were enlivened with herds of elks and buffaloes; the former choosing the steeps and uplands, the latter preferring the plains. At this time the buffaloes were attended by their young ones, which frisked about, whilst the female elks were great with young. The whole country displayed an exuberant verdure; the trees which bore blossoms were rapidly bursting into flower, and the soft velvet rind of the branches reflected the oblique rays of a rising or a setting sun, imparting a cheerfulness and brilliancy to the scene, which gladdened the heart with the buoyant influences of the season." "The transition," says Dr. Richardson, "is so sudden from the perfect repose, the deathlike silence of an Arctic winter, to the animated bustle of summer; the trees spread their foliage with such magical rapidity, and every succeeding morning opens with such agreeable accessions of feathered songsters to swell the chorus-their plumage as gay and unimpaired as when they enlivened the deep green forests of tropical climes-that the return of a northern spring excites in the mind a deep feeling of the beauties of the season, a sense of the bounty and providence of the Supreme Being, which is cheaply pur

chased by the tedium of nine months of winter. The most verdant lawns and cultivated glades of Europe, the most beautiful productions of art, fail in producing that exhilaration and joyous buoyancy of mind which we have experienced in treading the wilds of Arctic America, when their snowy covering has been just replaced by an infant but vigorous vegetation. It is impossible for the traveller to refrain, at such moments, from joining his aspirations to the song which every creature around is pouring forth to the Great Creator.

We said the travellers were exposed to perils. We will give you an instance. On one occasion a canoe was going quietly down one of the rivers, and the bow and steersman were standing erect at stem and stern, casting quick glances ahead and on either side as they neared the waterfall which obstructed their progress. The approach to the landingplace was somewhat difficult, owing to a point of rocks which projected into the stream in the direction of the fall, and round which point it was necessary to steer with some dexterity in order to avoid being drawn into the strong current. The fearless guides, however, had often passed the place in former years in safety, and, accordingly, dashed at the point with reckless indifference, their paddles flinging a circle of spray over their heads as they changed them from side to side with graceful but vigorous rapidity. The swift stream carried them quickly round the point of danger, and they had almost reached the quiet eddy near the landingplace, when the stern of the canoe was caught by the stream, which in an instant whirled them out from the shore, and