the Salmon, Herring, and Vendace. 497 



opinions of Dr WALKER, I must observe, that, according to my own" experience, they 

 contain numerous and serious errors. Herlings may be taken in the Annan during all 

 the winter months ; and, in respect to their spawning, a process, he thinks they do not per- 

 form, a reference of the reader to page 465. of the text will be found to set the matter 

 entirely at rest. 



He says, moreover, that in the Tay it is called the Lammas Whiting, and that it 

 abounds in every salmon river. The next year " it becomes a whiting or white trout :" 

 he seems to think that neither of these fishes spawn, " the grilse is another year of the 

 same fish, and he says it is never known to spawn," nor to ascend distant rivulets. 

 (P. 357). The errors contained in these latter opinions of Dr WALKER, will be found 

 fully explained in various parts of the text and appendix of this memoir. Mr DRUM- 

 MOND, an excellent practical writer in the same work, (Transactions of Highland Society, 

 p. 365), says that " the nature of the food whilst in the sea is unknown." 



The Rev. Dr HEADRICK, who made many excellent suggestions respecting the fisheries, 

 remarks, (p. 444), I " suppose they (salmon and herring) live chiefly on water and on 

 small insects, which abound both in the sea and rivers. I have been told of the fry 

 of smaller fishes found in the stomachs of salmon ; but such instances never occurred to 

 me, and I never heard of any animal being found in the stomach of a herring. Mr 

 HEADRICK'S opportunities were ample since he examined the matter personally, and 

 undoubtedly was present at the fishings in Lochbroom, and indeed on both coasts. 



Some of my friends have thought, that I was not bound to notice the Parliamentary 

 Report on the Salmon Fisheries, but simply to have brought forward what I had my- 

 self discovered or elucidated. I feel at a loss to understand how they had arrived at 

 this conclusion The Parliamentary Inquiry resolved itself into an inquiry respecting 

 the natural and economical history of the salmon, and might be expected to contain all 

 that was known on the subject. 



Shortly after the printing of the evidence before the Committee of the House, vari- 

 ous journals announced the opening up of these scientific questions by the Committee, 

 and I naturally felt anxious to learn the sources whence they had drawn, and the indivi- 

 duals to whom they had applied for information. I was not myself aware of the ex- 

 istence of any researches into the natural history of the salmon, salmon-trout, parr- 

 trout, corregonus, &c. which had any authenticity, or wliich in any shape merited the 

 name of a scientific inquiry. But still, as sometimes though rarely happens, it might 

 have happened that original experiments and observations had been privately instituted 

 and that knowledge existed of a correct and authentic nature, which had yet been with- 

 held from the public. But discovering soon that the evidence was conflicting and ab- 

 solutely devoid of all that care and precision requisite to be had in view in scientific in- 

 quiries, I regretted much the not having committed to paper some observations I made 

 many years ago on the generation, more especially of the osseous fishes, the repetition 

 of such experiments and observations being very expensive and troublesome ; but I re- 

 gretted in some measure my having been induced to pursue the history of the generation 

 of cartilaginous fishes in preference to the osseous. Sensible now that the inquiry, if 

 it had been happily directed towards the latter, might have gone far to settle most points 

 in the natural history of the salmon, the inquiry having been conducted at a time when 



