MONSTER SAL'MON. 



291 



yoimg) arrive in the sea just about the very time that 

 there is most food for them. The sea-fish mostly 

 spawn during the spring months, and from this source, 

 therefore, both the kelts and the smolts derive abun- 

 dance of nutritious food. These provisions show an 

 admirable "police of Nature," by means of which 

 various kinds of fish feed on each other, and are kept 

 in check, while all are made to reach a high state of 

 development. 



MONSTER SALMON. 



For several years past I have, by the kindness of 

 London fishmongers — especially Mr. Thomas Grove, of 

 Charing Cross; Mr. Charles of Lower Grosveuor Place, 

 Pimlico ; Messrs. Gilson and Quelch, Bond Street ; 

 Messrs. Grove, Bond Street; Messrs. Smithers, London 

 Bridge Kailway Station ; Mr. Towell, Strand, &c. — been 

 enabled to cast nearly all the monster salmon that have 

 come to the London market. I generall}'' have the fish 

 sent up to Albany Street in the evening, and I can now 

 (having had so much practice) cast a mould and return 

 the fish uninjui'ed in about two hours ; the process of 

 casting does not injure the fish in the least, sometimes 

 not a scale is rubbed off. 



The following is a catalogue of the largest salmon I 



is very possible that the law of Nature is that the large raales 

 shall die in certain numbers, and thus leave room for the smaller 

 males to keep up the breed. The females are found dead much 

 more rarely than the males ; these facts may also have some 

 bearing on the interpretation of the male smolt having its milt 

 fully developed, and capable, as I myself have proved by experi- 

 ment, of fecundating the ova of adult fish. The female smolt has 

 the ova developed in a very minute degree at the time that the 

 male smolt contains ripe milt. 



