Mr D. Ellis a)i the Natural Histoid of the Salmon. ^siT 



In the statement of Mr Little, both the male and female fish 

 are said to assist in forming the bed ; and Mr Halliday has 

 often taken these fish, on their return to the sea, with the skin 

 rubbed off below the jaws, of the size of a half-crown piece, 

 occasioned by rubbing up the gravel and making furrows for 

 the spawn *. At this particular period, the head of the male 

 has been said to be furnished with a long hard bill on his under 

 jaw, and which again decreases as the spawning season passes 

 off. This bill or hook has been deemed by some an extra- 

 ordinary provision of nature, to enable the male more effectually 

 to aid in preparing the furrow destined to receive the spawn. But 

 Dr Fleming says it is the under jaw itself of the male that is 

 thus turned up ; that it appears to be a distinguishing mark of 

 sex, and not produced by any mechanical means -f*. 



The spawn is, as we have said, deposited in furrows formed 

 in the gravel, and is afterwards covered over with loose gravel, 

 so as to resemble, says Mr Little, an onion bed in a garden. 

 In this state the ova remain for weeks, or sometimes much 

 longer, apparently inert, like seeds buried in the soil. The pe- 

 riod at which the young fry begin to rise, depends much on the 

 season of the year. They remain in the bed, says Mr Little, 

 till some natural warmth comes into the river in the spring of 

 the year. In an early spring the fry come forth early, and 

 later when the spring is late. Generally they begin to rise from 

 the bed about the beginning of March, and their first movement 

 is usually completed by the middle of April. Mr Little has 

 never himself seen the first appearance of the beds after evolu- 

 tion has commenced, and previously to the fry quitting them ; 

 but persons employed by him to protect the beds in the upper 

 branches of the rivers, describe the young animals as rising from 

 the beds like a crop of oats or thick braird of grain, rushing up 

 in very great numbers. The tail first rises up, and the young 

 animals often leave the bed with a portion of the investing mem- 

 brane of the ovum about their heads J . Mr Halliday states also, 

 that the fry generally come first into hfe from about the 10th of 

 March to the 10th of April. They do not all, however, come 

 into life exactly at one time, but nearly so, amd some appear to 



• Report I. p. 62. + Ibid II. p. 67- 



$ Ibid p. 100. S 



