f52 On Salmon- Fry. 



half dried up, and the water transparent,) however dlniinn- 

 tive might be their size, vSuch are their nicredlble mukitudes 

 that they could no more rqniain concealed than the pebbles 

 over which the streams flaw ; and yet daring ihis season, so 

 favourable to exposure and discovery, I believe not one 

 solitary individual of the preceding spawning season can 

 be met with. 



In the Tweed, more than two hundred thousand salmon 

 are annually caught ; and ihe^e, astonishing as the number 

 may seem, probiibly bear but a moderate proportion to the 

 whole quantity that enters the river. Every female de-. 

 pcisiis many thousands of ova; hence it is obvious w])at 

 myriads of progeny niust be the result; and accordingly 

 in the months of March and April the amount of fry in 

 the river fully corresponds with these data; but after the 

 vernal floods, no vestige remain^ of the true salmon-fry, 

 the whole of the immense body being swept down into the 

 ocean. 



The writer in your last Number seems to he unacquainted 

 with the spawning months, which are not the two which he 

 conceives, but the last four months of the year. The fibh 

 by no means all spawn at or near ihe same time, there 

 being conside'rable diversity in that respect, some com- 

 mencing and even finishing two or three months before 

 others. This diversity probably has two very dift'crent cir- 

 cumstances for its cause, — the dificrent ages of the fish, 

 and the different periods of their entrance into the fresh 

 waters. The weather, and state of the rivers as to floods, 

 have also an evident influence. It is in the months of 

 June and July that the old fish, recovered from the great 

 expenditure of health and substance in the preceding 

 spawning season, first begin to ascend the rivers. What 

 are called fresh fish, indeed, conie into the rivers even in 

 December, and in all the following months, but these are 

 fish which have not spawned in the last season. In' Sep- 

 tember the females are all "exceedingly distended with ova, 

 and a few of them even begin spawning in that month, 

 more in that following, but .November and December are 

 the princi[)al spawnnijx montiis; and tliat the ova then de- 

 posited are the germs of the same fry which ap})ear so 

 abundantly in the. spring, is a truth as well known, and 

 ascertained, as that the fish themselves have heads and tails. 

 The very rapid growth of the fry i specially noticed, as 

 an extraordinary circumstance ; 1)ut we shall advance a very' 

 short way indeed intt) natural research, if the character of 

 e;t/J»ordinary is to beat us back. The average weight of 



th«- 



