. Mr D. Ellis cm thi Natural History of the Salmon. 269 



stake-nets are employed, these nets being made to extend upon 

 the coasts between high and low water-mark. That salmon 

 move upwards and downwards with the tide, is testified by many 

 witnesses, who have seen and intercepted them in their down- 

 ward course : and, by the fact, that stake-nets are commonly 

 provided with ebb as well as with flood courts, on purpose to 

 meet this disposition in the salmon, and do actually catch some- 

 times as many fish in their downward as in their upward course. 

 Hence, too, it is, that when, in autumn, salmon become full of 

 spawn, and desert the coasts, betaking themselves more to the 

 mid-channel, in order to ascend rivers, few are taken in stake- 

 nets ; and, for the same reason, as the kelts or spawned fish 

 descend, like the fry in the mid-channel, they are rarely, if ever, 

 intercepted by the stake-nets. 



But why, it may be asked, do salmon thus visit the coasts of 

 the sea and of the estuaries of rivers, linger upon them, and 

 seem indifferent about entering rivers, unless they are, in all re- 

 spects, suited to their taste ? To this they are apparently im- 

 pelled by the strength of the appetite, which, next to that of 

 propagation, exerts the greatest force over the movements of 

 animals, viz. that of hunger. On the banks of estuaries, sal- 

 mon, says Mr Halliday, find a great deal of food ; he has taken 

 a great many salmon in the frith and estuaries with worms pass- 

 ing through them; such worms as are to be seen on those banks*. 

 During the fishing season of 1823, Mr Moir received all the 

 salmon caught in the stake-nets set between the rivers Don and 

 Ythan ; also the whole of the fish taken in the bay of Nigg ; 

 those taken, likewise, at the bridge of Dee, and at nine other 

 small fisheries in that river. As all these fish were cut up for 

 the purpose of being preserved in a fresh state, he had an op- 

 portunity of examining their stomachs. In the stomachs of 

 those taken in the upper river fisheries, he could never detect 

 any kind of food ; whereas, those taken in the sea were fre- 

 quently gorged wi»h food, which was principally sand-eels 

 (Ammodytes tobianus of Lin.) : The different appearance of the 

 fishes corresponded with that of their stomachs, those taken 

 from the river being softer and inferior to those got from the 

 sea Whence he concludes, that salmon frequent the flat sands 

 B>eipori I. p. 61. 



