12 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 



nied either, it is alike death to him. It is also 

 known, that roe, if shed in unpropitious situations, 

 to which the fish is compelled by necessity when 

 withheld from those to which nature directs him, 

 becomes abortive. Why this should be the case, 

 why the egg cannot be hatched in the sea, or in 

 the tide- way in rivers, like the eggs of other fish, 

 is a mystery, like many other mysteries, which will 

 ever remain undiscovered ; nor should we be the 

 wiser or the better if we could develope them. 

 The undoubted fact, however, is, that unless the 

 fish can attain the necessary sand-beds high up 

 the rivers, the pea come to nothing. Hence fol- 

 low the pernicious effects of these obstructions, 

 which, preventing the new fish from going up the 

 rivers to spawn, drive them into traps, where they 

 are caught and killed. They are obeying a resist- 

 less necessity in hunting for an aperture to get up 

 the streams, and are thus forced into the fish- 

 locks. The situation of the spent fish above the 

 weirs is just as bad ; they are hemmed in, and 

 prevented from retiring to the sea to recruit their 

 strength and invigorate their system, until they 

 lose almost the appearance of their species, and 

 finally perish. In this state they are quite uneata- 

 ble and unwholesome, and I have no doubt would 

 poison any one obliged to taste them. These 

 back fish are not those which the spearers destroy ; 

 they kill the fish as they come from the sea to 

 breed, not those which are returning to the sea 

 after breeding. It must, therefore, appear evident 



