SALMON. 7 



or later in the spring or summer months, it is observed 

 that some rivers are much earlier than others, the fish in 

 them coming into breeding condition and beginning to spawn 

 at an earlier period. 



Rivers issuing from large lakes afford early Salmon, the 

 waters having been purified by deposition in the lakes : on 

 the other hand, rivers swollen by melting snows in the spring 

 months are later in their season of producing fish, and yield 

 their supply when the lake rivers are beginning to fail. 

 " The causes influencing this," says Sir William Jardine, to 

 whom I am indebted for much valuable information on the 

 Salmonidec, as well as many specimens, " seem yet unde- 

 cided ; and where the time varies much in the neighbouring 

 rivers of the same district, they are of less easy solution. 

 The Northern rivers, with little exception, are, however, the 

 earliest, a fact well known in the London markets ; and 

 going still farther north, the range of the season and of 

 spawning may be influenced by the latitude.' 1 Artedi says, 

 " in Sweden the Salmon spawn in the middle of summer." 



" It has been suggested that this variation in the season 

 depended on the warmth of the waters ; and that those 

 Highland rivers which arose from large lochs were all 

 early, owing to the great mass and warmer temperature of 

 their sources, that the spawn there was sooner hatched. 

 There are two rivers in Sutherlandshire which show this 

 late and early running under peculiar circumstances. One, 

 the Oikel, borders the county, and springs from a small 

 alpine lake, perhaps about half a mile in breadth ; the other, 

 the Shin, is a tributary to the Oikel, joins it about five 

 miles from the mouth, but takes its rise from Loch Shin, 

 a large and deep extent of water, and connected to a chain 

 of other deep lochs. Early in the spring, all the Salmon 

 entering the common mouth diverge at the junction, turn 

 up the Shin, and return as it were to their own and warmer 



