On Salmon- Fnj> ^ , 255 



Ihe fry In spring will not amount to btie ounce ; and th^ 

 writer who has made it necessary for nie to offer these ob- 

 servations, admits that the spring Fry in the following July 

 and August attain a weight of from M to 20 ounces. This 

 latter fact I know to be much greater than stated ; and surely 

 the writer who can cavil at the acquisition of the first 

 ounce, and imrriediately admit its multiple by twenty in 

 h'ttle more than the same period, must have very incon- 

 gruous notions on the subject. His paper was professedly" 

 written to exhibit what he calls a more rational and cre- 

 dible account of the matter than I had given ; and its owrt 

 contradiction and improbability are strikingly manifest, as 

 will be seen by contrast ng the following two passages: 

 *'The fact is. tl^ie young fry do not descend the rivers with 

 the old salmon in the spring after they are spawned, for 

 in 'the October following they are no bigger liian a min- 

 now.'* — '' In the months of June and July they (the fry) 

 are about five oi-'slk inches in length : I his I know to be 

 fact." ^ .-;••-■.:. • . • 



These paragraphs contain the bonis of a piercing dilem-^ 

 ma, and I ofi'er the writer his choice of being gored with 

 that which he may prefer. Either the same fry which 

 were five and six inches long in June and July have, hy 

 some strange means, been wasted down to the size of a 

 minnow in the following October, or the fry then no bioirer 

 "than a minnow continue in the river till the following June 

 and July : and in this latter case, whence have those shoals 

 of fry originated which the same writer sends down to the 

 sea in spring ? 



The fish which he speaks of in the months of June and 

 July, is an abundant and well-known visitor in our rivers 

 at that season ; but it is a perfectly distinct species of tself, 

 and by no n^eans the salinon-fry, with which, however, it 

 has long been, and with the ill-intornied it still is, con- 

 founded. It is the samlet. Few animated productions of 

 nature have had a more contested, origin, or been subjected 

 to more wild and extravagant assumptions. Most e:enerally 

 it was considered as a backward and spurious brood of the 

 salmon, that always remained dw^rf ; never bred j and even 

 all the individuals wer^ absurdly deemed males. Its na- 

 tural history is now, however, well ascertained, and, ex- 

 cepting in size, it certainly does approximate, in all re- 

 spects, very nearly to the salmon. Likfe the latter, it ascends 

 our rivers, from the ocean, in sunmier, continues in great 

 al)undance throusih the autunin, .afterwards spawns, and 

 in the fir^t two months of the year again descend^ to the 



iea. 



