SALMON. 197 



The Salar is sufficiently distinguished by being named separately, 



Purpureisque Salar stellatus tergore guttes. 



With purple spots his back is sprinkled o'er 

 In Starlike forms. 



There is little added to this meagre account by Sidonius, 

 "when he terms these fishes "rapacissimae Salares" the very 

 ravenous Salars; but naturalists are in error, although our 

 illustrious and generally accurate countryman Ray is of the 

 number, (in his "Dictionarium Trilingue,") when they judge 

 the Salar to be the Common Trout. This last is distinguished 

 by Ausonius under the name of Fario: 



Ambignus, 

 Amborum medio, Fario intercepte subaevo. 



Fario, a doubtful kind, 

 Between the two, as stopped in middle age. 



It is probable that either the Sea Trout or the Peal is 

 the Salar of the poet, and we know that the word Fario 

 is derived from a source Avhich is neither Latin nor Greek; 

 but it is the name of the Trout to the present day, and 

 probably was the provincial name of the same fish in the 

 country of Ausonius. When he calls it ambiguous, it should 

 not be understood as of a more doubtful species than the 

 others, but as forming a natural link of affinity between 

 them: on which subject the ancients held opinions long since 

 given over to oblivion; for it was commonly believed that in 

 all cases where creatures of apparently similar races bore some 

 near resemblance, their likeness was produced by a mingling 

 of the breeds, a kind of natural selection, the supposition of 

 which is of no modern date. We believe that a figure of the 

 Salmon will be found stamped on some Samian or ancient 

 Roman pottery, as represented in the "Intellectual Observer" 

 for November, 1864, where even the young is shewn with 

 the bag of the egg attached to the throat; no small proof that 

 there were some in remote times who studied these things. 



The weight of the Salmon was formerly much greater Avith 

 us than we are likely to see it again, at least while means are 



