JW> Mr D. Ellis on the Natural History of the Salmon. 



between the Don and Ythan, for the purpose of feeding ; and, 

 for the same reason, he adds, they frequent the coasts at Mussel- 

 burgh and Aberlady, which abound with sand-eels, and are suc- 

 cessful stations for the stake-net, though the one place is thirty, 

 and the other forty, miles from a spawning river *. 



That salmon do obtain the chief part of their food during 

 their residence in salt water, seems certain from the fact, attest- 

 ed by various persons, that they are in greatest perfection when 

 taken out of the sea, or very shortly thereafter ; and that they 

 fall off in condition in proportion to their abode in rivers. Sal- 

 mon taken in the sea, says Mr Halliday, are by far the richest 

 and best ; they are both weightier and fatter, and in firmer con- 

 dition. If detained in fresh water at any season, they become 

 unsound, and if this happen during the warm weather of sum- 

 mer, they are soon rendered unfit for food -f*. The largest fish 

 are usually got at sea-fisheries, says Mr Stevenson, and the 

 nearer they are got to the salt water the finer is their quality ; 

 so much so, that any one versed in the state of salmon, would 

 at once be able to pick out, from 500 head of fish, those that 

 had been more than two or three days in the river J. As it 

 thus appears that the stomach of the salmon is filled with food, 

 and his condition the most perfect, while roaming over the coasts 

 of the sea and the banks of estuaries ; and that he is found with 

 an empty stomach, and in very inferior condition, after a short 

 residence in fresh water, we readily see not only why he visits 

 the coasts of the sea, but lingers upon them ; why, if he is in- 

 duced to move upwards with the tide, he again returns with it ; 

 and why, when he may have pushed up rivers during floods, 

 he soon tries again to revisit the sea, where alone he is enabled 

 to find proper and sufficient food to satisfy his hunger, and ade- 

 quately support his growth. 



From the facts thus stated respecting the migrations of the 

 salmon, at different periods of its life, it would seem that it can 

 begin to live only in fresh water, and that, in the earliest period 

 of its existence, salt water is fatal to it ; that, at a period some- 

 what later, it descends rivers on its way to the sea, where it in- 

 creases rapidly in size, and in two or three months returns again 

 to the river. 



• Report II, p. 171. t Kejjon I. ^0. + Report II. p. 122. 



