the Salmon, Herring, and Vendace. 491 



APPENDIX TO PART I. 



APPENDIX A. 



1. Period of Spawning, and Use of unwholesome Salmon as Pood. 



THE usual period for the spawning of salmon, lias been established on pretty clear 

 evidence. The month of November seems to be the month in which the greater number 

 spawn ; but it may also be admitted, that throughout the greater part of October and De- 

 cember, this process is going on in all salmon rivers. It were a matter of great mo- 

 ment agreeably to the existing regulations respecting fence-time, that the precise pe- 

 riod when the process commences, and when it ceases, were fully determined, and put 

 by intuitive evidence beyond the reach of doubt, and the conjectures of interested per- 

 sons. To determine the period when the greater number of fish in salmon rivers shall 

 have ceased spawning, for if it really be as may be suspected, that those which are 

 said to spawn in January, February, March, and even so late as the 6th of April, be 

 few in number, then though the fact be an interesting one in zoology, it becomes un- 

 important in a legislative view. Were it even proved, which it has by no means been, 

 that fish do spawn so late as April, it does not at all follow that the ova should come 

 to maturity. There must be some limit to this. In a natural state they seem to re- 

 quire twenty weeks, this being as I have shewn the usual period they lie imbedded 

 under the gravel ; and it is not to be believed, except on the most unquestionable autho- 

 rity, that the salmon egg can pass through' the same stages in a few days, requiring, 

 under other circumstances, and those the normal or usual phenomena, twenty weeks for 

 its development. A negative proof, but an important one with regard to this, is connect- 

 ed with the fact, that salmon smolts of the usual size when taken by angling, are scarce- 

 ly if ever seen after the month of May. My friend Mr W , a most successful an- 

 gler, informed me that he had seen them on one or two occasions in June in the Tweed 

 as high up as Kelso, but the season had been remarkable for drought, and these smolts 

 had acquired an unusual size and weight, being in some instances ten inches to a foot 

 in length, and many of them nearly one pound in weight. 



As salmon approach the spawning condition, they are understood by most educated 

 persons to be unwholesome as food for man. The same objection lies to the use of the 

 kelt, i. e. the salmon after having spawned. As both these positions are universally 

 denied by the peasantry and lower orders of society * ; the salmon are slaughtered 



" You may get people to buy any thing if you sell it cheap enough." Mr J. JOHNSTOXE'S 

 Evidence, p. 53. Every thing I have observed with regard to the use of unwholesome food amongst 

 the lower orders, tends to confirm Mr JOHNSTONE'S opinion. 



With reference to this note, it may be suggested, that the pickling and kippering of salmon by 



VOL. XII. PART II. 3 R 



