the Salmon, Herring, and Vendace. 485 



may be made to legislate on this important and national ques- 

 tion. 



NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE SALMON. 



We have examined the contents of the stomach of trouts of 

 varying sizes, caught by ourselves in streams and rivers inhabited 

 by the fry ; and of the many opened for this special purpose, we 

 have never found the slightest vestige of salmon-fry or smolt in 

 their stomachs. We have taken trout at the time that the fry 

 abounded in the river in its smaller condition, and still no ves- 

 tige of fry appeared in the stomach of these fishes. That trout 

 devour the ova of their own species, I am perfectly aware ; but 

 to get at the salmon eggs, trout would require to dig up the gra- 

 vel-bed : now, from the details already given, this seems to me 

 the most improbable of all things. Trout at the season when fry 

 first appear in the stream, do not seem disposed to take minnow, 

 or small fishes of any kind ; and the amazingly rapid growth of the 

 fry renders it impossible that they should serve as food for trout, 

 at least for any length of time. Three kelts have been examined 

 by a person on whom I could entirely depend. Their stomachs 

 were found full of the usual food of trout, that is beetles, aqua- 

 tic insects of all kinds, and larvae of flies or cod-bait. Now, this 

 was when the fry were just making their appearance in the stream. 

 During winter, when the spawned salmon are in the rivers, they 

 do not seem inclined to eat any thing ; and trout are much in the 

 same condition ; and though it be true that salmon roe is con- 

 sidered as a good bait *, both for salmon and trout, yet it does 

 not follow, that they themselves are enabled to obtain it. No 

 statement, therefore, rests upon more meagre data than that trout 

 and kelts are the natural enemies either of the ova or of the fry 

 of salmon. 



* Do they know it as such ? 



