MALACOPTERYGII ABDOMINALES. 473 



of the season, and other external circumstances. Their num- 

 ber too is very great, 27,850 have been counted in one female 

 of the weight of twenty pounds. 



The young salmons grow rapidly, and very soon come to 

 the length of four or five inches. When they have attained 

 nearly to a foot in length, they have sufficient strength to 

 abandon the upper part of the rivers, and to gain the sea, 

 which they quit again when they are eighteen inches long, 

 towards the commencement of summer, and later than the 

 old individuals of their species. At two years of age, they 

 weigh six or eight pounds, and at five or six years old, they 

 only weigh ten or twelve. From these data, we may easily 

 judge of the advanced age of those which are fished in Scot- 

 land and in Sweden, of six feet long, and not weighing less 

 than eighty or one hundred pounds. 



Such is the abundance of these fishes, that at Bergen, for 

 instance, it is by no means extraordinary to see the fishermen 

 bring in two thousand salmons in a day. We read, in the ac- 

 count of the voyage of Lapeyrouse, that on the Eastern 

 coast of Tartary, a similar number of these fishes was taken 

 in one day in the month of July, and there are countries 

 where more than 200,000 are taken in the year. Pennant 

 tells us that in Norway a single cast of the net sometimes 

 furnishes more than three hundred, and in the Tweed it 

 brings more than seven hundred. 



The salmons possess no great tenacity of life. They die 

 promptly, not only when they are taken out of the water, but 

 even when they are shut up in reservoirs, the water of which 

 is not running, or in hutches or troughs, which are not placed 

 in the middle of rivers. 



With respect to the other species, the trout, the salmon- 

 trout, &c, there is nothing of importance for us to add 

 here. 



