10 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 



forty-seven pounds, but nothing of that kind is 

 now seen ; a fish seldom exceeds twelve pounds, 

 and very few weigh so much. From hence, I 

 think, it is a rational conclusion, that they seldom 

 spawn more than once. Supposing that Nature 

 is alike every where, I draw my inferences 

 from the river Dart. Shaw says, that salmon, 

 like swallows, visit the selfsame spot every 

 season, as has been ascertained by the experi- 

 ment of fastening a small ring to the tails of some 

 individuals, and thus setting them at liberty, when 

 they have made their appearance at the same 

 spot three successive seasons. From other facts, 

 which will be mentioned hereafter, I believe 

 there is no doubt but that they return to the river 

 in which they were bred. 



There are some of the habits of this fish with 

 which we are well acquainted, and which do not 

 rest upon opinion, but are notorious facts. 

 Though we do not know to a certainty whether 

 a salmon attains his full age in one, in seven, or in 

 fifty years, and in all probability we never shall 

 know it, yet we do know that salmon come from 

 the sea, and will, if they can, go up the rivers 

 ^500 miles to deposit their roe ; and the fish into 

 which such roe becomes animated, will, if they 

 can, in the proper season, betake themselves to 

 the sea, and after a time return again to the 

 rivers. These habits are notorious, and they fur- 

 nish a manifest conclusion, establishing another 

 fact equally obvious, that if the old fish cannot go 



