SPECIES OF THE SALMON. 48 



P Linnaeus smelts or smouls. In July or August, a 

 " fish comes to us from the sea, which we call salmon- 

 " peal, about twelve inches long, and from one-half 

 " to three-fourths of a pound's weight, exactly re- 

 " sembling the salmon, except in size. In March, 

 " April and May, we have the sea- trout or gilse, sal- 

 u mo truttajgenemlly two pounds' weight, so much 

 " resembling the salmon, that great difference of opi- 

 " nion has prevailed, whether the three fish are three 

 * different species, or only one. After these, come 

 " the salmon of various sizes. What I particularly 

 " want to know is, whether these whitings or her- 

 " lings answer to our salmon-peal." This letter was 

 published likewise in the Carlisle Patriot, and 

 soon after I received a satisfactory, and circum- 

 stantial answer from a respectable gentleman of 

 Carlisle, saying, inter alia, " I have all my life 

 " paid great attention to the subject, and tried 

 " many experiments in a more substantial way than 

 " was done by Messrs. Ralph and Barnes in the 

 " river Eden in 1820, though that alone was suffi- 

 " cient to have convinced even a sceptic, that whit- 

 " ings or herrings become salmon, and are the 

 " same genus of fish that you term salmon-peal. 

 " They are fry or smelts in May, when they leave 

 " us and go to the Solway Frith. About the mid- 

 " die of July they return again into our rivers, 

 " about ten or twelve inches in length ; from this 

 " state they become sea-trout and gilse, and in the 

 *' following summer or autumn, salmon, from ten 

 ** to near twenty pounds' weight." 



