Mr D. Ellis on tJie Natwal History qftlie Salmon. 9i&5 



in the place of their residence, and in the quantities and quali. 

 ties of their food *. 



The migration of the salmon from the sea to the river, and 

 back again from the river to the sea, would seem, in certain ri- 

 vers, to take place at short intervals, through every period of 

 the year. During all the spring and summer months, says Mr 

 Little, salmon continue to visit the rivers from the sea. When 

 they thus enter the river early, they would soon go back if they 

 were not killed. After being some little time in the river, they 

 would naturally return to the sea as soon as there was a little 

 flood. He has known them taken in the river Annan when 

 thus going down again to the sea •(• ; — a fact confirmed by Mr 

 Halliday, in the most distinct terms. He fished the river An- 

 nan for several years ; and states, tliat there is one pool in par- 

 ticular in that river, which he had often fished, quite clean before 

 rain came on ; yet, whenever the rain did come, he continued 

 fishing till the water rose so high as to stop the operation ; and 

 all the time he caught salmon coming down the river, some of 

 them much exhausted, and quite changed in colour, as if they 

 had been hung in a smoky chimney, and others very red in the 

 skin. He has taken more than a hundred fish, in one night, in 

 that pool, after the rain had commenced, although it had been 

 fished clean immediately before J. 



But, though the disposition in salmon to enter rivers, at short 

 intervals, may be universally the same under similar circum- 

 stances ; yet the fact, that they are found in different rivers, at 

 different times, seems to point to some diff*erences in the circum- 

 stances and conditions of those rivers, which counteract these 

 natural dispositions. Thus, in the rivers Ness and T'hurso in 

 Scotland ; in the Severn, the Eden, and others in England ; and 

 in the Shannon and Lee in Ireland, the months of December, 

 January, and particularly February, are declared, by various 

 witnesses, to be the best times in which salmon are taken in 

 those rivers, both in regard to the quantity and quality of the 

 fish ; and some of these rivers begin to fall off" after this period, 

 and, towards April and May, yield few or no fish. Other rivers 

 again, as the Tay and the Tweed, do not yield fish so soon as 

 the former, but continue to afford them, in a marketable condi- 



• Report II. p. 70. f Report I. p. 10& 



X Ibid. p. 61. 



