26 FISH CULTURE. 



All kinds of aquatic birds, moorhens, water ousels, 

 ducks, and particularly the tame duck, are of its 

 worst enemies. When it is hatched, on emerging 

 from the gravel, possibly before it can find shelter 

 under a stone, it lies in a helpless state, hampered by 

 the large umbilical protuberance, and it suffers again 

 from foes of all kinds to the full as much as in its 

 egg state, and from this time until it becomes a 

 smolt it is alternately the prey of the trouts and 

 of its own species ; for the salmon when in the kelt 

 state, being so ravenous, devours its own offspring 

 with avidity, while gulls and many other birds of 

 predacious habit hover over the shoals when on the 

 shallow fords, and seize upon the young fish by hun- 

 dreds ; and even the angler, foul shame to him ! 

 scruples not to take them daily by the basketful, 

 while whole bushels of them at a time are often 

 taken by means of baskets and nets in the small 

 mill-streams, 1 and they are even used in others to 

 feed pigs with, so that scarcely one egg in a thousand 

 ever produces a full-grown salmon. When it reaches 

 the sea, the fish has a fresh series of perils to endure. 



another will come and help him ; nay, even four or five will unite 

 their forces ; and it must be a good sized stone which can resist 

 their efforts. Of course the mischief they do is incalculable. 



1 In some places they are sent away to be converted into 

 sardines. 



