298 FOOD OF SALMON. 



I fear that these anatomical facts may be uninterest- 

 ing to some of my readers, and although the teleologists 

 of the present day rather deny the doctrines of the 

 ''Bridgwater Treatises," and are slow at recognising 

 the adaptation of structures and organs to the economy 

 of the animals who possessed them ; yet I think they 

 cannot deny the fact that the structure of teeth, stomach, 

 and intestines, have '' some " relation to the food of the 

 animal; and when I have time, I hope to enlarge con- 

 siderably on this subject, the main object of com'se being 

 to reason out the lessons derivable from the internal 

 anatomy of the salmon as compared to that of other 

 vertebrata, whether terrestrial or aquatic. 



FOOD OF SALMON. 



It may be asked w^hat is the food of the salmon ? I 

 answer, sand-eels, shrimps, lug-worms, and fry of sea 

 fish of all kinds. I think the one "great fact in the 

 natural history of the salmon (which I have learnt 

 during my visits to Scotland), is the reason for the great 

 abundance of salmon in that favoured country, viz., that 

 the spawning grounds are of great extent, and the feed- 

 ing grounds illimitable. From the Frith of Forth up to 

 Nairn, I neither saw nor heard of a single oyster ; the 

 reason is that the east coast of Scotland is the land 

 boundary of a vast submarine plateau of sand, and this 

 sand abounds with the food of the Salmo salar : hence 

 the abundance and fatness of Scotch salmon. 



It is a law of Nature that the more space and better 

 food animals have, the larger size they attain. Thus we 

 find the biggest heads of deer in open and extended 

 parts of the world, whether those ranges be in Canada 

 for Wapiti, the Himalayas for Barasinga, as compared 

 with heads of Scotch deer. Tlie heads from the old 



