ON THE YOUNG OF THE SALMON. 161 



The claws in the Megalonyx (and still more in the Mega- 

 therium), were extraordinarily long; according to all ap- 

 pearance, longer even than in the sloth, which has the longest 

 of all existing mammals. They are neither flat-shaped, as 

 in the burrowers, nor are they compressed, as in the sloth ; 

 on the contrary, their dimensions as to height and breadth 

 are nearly equal. They are curved longitudinally, as in the 

 sloth ; and have the same peculiarity in their articular sur- 

 faces, that they cannot be extended in the same plane as the 

 hand. Their number, also, as in the sloth, is reduced to 

 three ; a reduction we do not else find in any burrower. It 

 is therefore evident, from this comparison, that the hand of 

 Megalonyx was constructed rather on the plan of the sloth 

 than of the burrowers ; and that all its provisions were ill 

 adapted for digging. 



(To he continued.) 



Art. it. — Observations on the Young of the Salmon, more par- 

 ticularly on the Samlet, or small Fish found in the Wye and other 

 Rivers, in the autumn months, called, in Herefordshire, " Las- 

 prinys, or Gravel-Lasprinys." By Thomas Jenkins, Esq.^ 



Various opinions are entertained respecting the above-named 

 fish, but up to the present time, as far as I am aware, their 

 specific identity has not been clearly ascertained. I here 

 particularly allude to those seen in the autmnn ; all observ- 

 ers agreeing that those of the spring, also called 'lasprings* 

 in this locality, are the produce of the salmon. An opinion 

 prevails in this neighbourhood that the samlets are peculiar 

 to the Wye, and one or two other rivers ; so far from this 

 being the case, 1 have myself taken them in nearly thirty 

 different rivers in England and Wales, w^here they are known 

 under the several local names of lasprings, gravel-lasprings, 

 salmon-pink, salmon-smelts, samlets, par, scarlings, seals, 

 smoults, gravelings, fingerlings, and small trout. 



The samlets are generally thought to constitute a species 

 of themselves, not growing larger than we see them here, 

 where they attain the average length of four inches ; some, 

 however, entertain the opinion that they are hybrids, the pro- 

 duce of the salmon wdth the sea-trout, or with the common 

 trout ; of w^hich latter opinion was the late Sir Humphrey 



' Read at the Soiree of the Herefordshire Natural History Society, 

 1 9th February, 1840. Communicated by the author to the Mag. Nat. Hist. 

 Vol. TV. — No. 40. n. s. t 



