PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 233 



the silvery scales and full migratory dress in the higher portions of the river, before 

 their movement to the sea, I have frequently detected. Referring to my notes, I 

 find that, some years since, when fishing in the county of Clare, about the 

 first week in May, in company with the late James O'Gorman, I met the salmon- 

 fry in abundance, with the silvery scales or migratory coat, in that part of the 

 Cooraclare river between the bridges of Ballydoneen and Goulbourne. Some 

 dozens were taken in a part of the stream that ran rapidly over a rocky and gravelly 

 bed which high banks overhung — it was close to a spawning-bed of the salmon. 

 These fish had perfectly assumed the silvery scales of the smolt, tapering in form, 

 and with pectoral and caudal fins largely developed — the terminal parts tinged 

 with a dark shade. Subsequent observations and application to the subject led 

 me to consider that they were the young of the ova of the previous year, and that 

 they had only attained their thirteenth or fourteenth month — their migration to the 

 sea being between the eleventh and fourteenth month from the period of extrication 

 from the ova. The river of Cooraclare — which assumes the name of Dunbeg where 

 it falls into the Atlantic Ocean, in the little estuary of that name — is famous for its 

 salmon. In August, 1835, I saw, in one haul, 104 salmon and 200 white trout, 

 taken by Michael Kennedy from the lake below the bridge and fall, under Dunbeg 

 Castle. The rivers Creegh, Annageeragh, and Annagh, which I have fished, are 

 all excellent in their seasons for salmon and white trout. In the little river of 

 Monmore, which runs through the great bog of that name, salmon and white trout 

 run up the stream in the autumn floods ; but I never recollect meeting the gravelling 

 there with the markings and bright hue of the parr. It is not my intention now to 

 enter into a statement of the salmon-fisheries, but merely to refer to some of the 

 observations made by Mr. Ffennell in this Society. At the meeting in April, Mr. 

 Ffennell mentioned that, at the approach of the spawning-season, the male salmon 

 invariably first ascend the rivers from the sea. It is singular that authors have 

 given the precedence to the females, both to the salmon and to the trout. Allowing 

 either the priority, experience has shown that the parent fish are on the spawning- 

 beds together, each occasionally engaged, but more especially the female, in the 

 excavation of the furrow or channel where the ova are to be deposited ; and in this 

 labour their principal exertions are " snouting" the gravel. The clear and shoaler 

 beds of a river, where it is necessary for the salmon to select the deposit-beds for 

 the due maturating of the ova, can be quietly watched and all their operations 

 noticed. In the Wandle, Mr. Gurney has seen the large trout raise ridges of gravel, 

 and has remarked their noses or snouts to be lacerated by the work. The romantic 

 history of Remy, the fisherman of the Vosges, pursuing his patient watchings on 

 the habits of the trout, in the bleak nights of November, and which reflect lustre on 

 his powers of observation, is pleasingly told. But no such endurance is now necessary 

 to mark the operations of the parent salmon. Some have observed that the hook of 

 the male salmon serves some purpose in the spawning operations. This curvature 

 of the under jaw is peculiar both to the male salmon and to the trout, and is 

 more or less developed, according to age or state of health of the fish. On the 

 ascent from the sea the hook is merely observable, but after the exhaustion of 

 spawning the reduced condition of the fish renders it more conspicuous ; and, should 

 obstacles prevent the proper period of return to the sea, a cartilaginous extension 

 takes place (whence the fish is called Carraughabaugh), but which disappears on the 

 renewed health of the fish, in its visit to the sea. In aged fish, particularly in large 

 trout, this curvature becomes permanent in its enlargement, forming a deep fossette 

 in the upper jaw. Without a good foundation of scientific and practical knowledge 

 combined in the pursuits of such subjects, it is a task of great difficulty to select, 

 with judgment, the plausible opinions that are frequently advanced by writers of 

 known character, but who, at the time, perhaps, only possess general views of the 

 matter of which they treat. Thus, Mr. Keiller, in " Lloyd's Scandinavian Adven- 

 tures,'' states the habits of the salmon of the Save, in Norway, to be such as are 

 altogether different from that of the British Isles ; forming no channel for the de- 

 posit of the ova, but allowing them to float down the stream, impregnated by the 

 milt, similarly floating, and, finally, whatever escapes the rapacity of the river fish 

 settles in some crevice or rock until the fry is excluded. This is so contrary to 

 the natural principles of the family of the true salmons as scarcely to be worthy of 

 VOL. i. R 



