44 SPECIES OF THE SALMON. 



This gentleman speaks of the immense number of 

 882,000 fish caught in seventy days, as one of the 

 great causes of the ruin of the salmon fisheries in the 

 North. He further adds, " From the experiments I 

 " have tried from the month of May 1812, nearly to 

 " the present time, compared with those of Messrs. 

 " Ralph and Barnes, that question is now nearly at 

 " rest in this country. I have tried various expe- 

 " riments with fry and waitings, or salmon-peal, 

 " for several years, to ascertain whether or no 

 "they become salmon, and by what stages, from 

 " which, I am now perfectly satisfied, that they do 

 " become salmon, in the course of two years, or 

 "thereabouts; for in the month of May 1812, I 

 " put a great number of salmon fry into a bleachfind 

 " basin on the river at Milbeck, near Carlisle, which 

 " now supplies our canal to the sea with water. In 

 « the latter end of that year, those fry became toler- 

 " ably well-sized whitings, and measured thirteen 

 " inches in length; and in the following season became 

 " sea-trout, small gilse, and one of them continued 

 " in the basin until it was twenty -six inches and a 

 " quarter in length. On the 16th of August 1813, 

 " I put twelve whitings into the same basin, first 

 " cutting the dead fin off the back to distinguish 

 " them from the fry, and on the 3d of June, 1814, 

 " I had the pond drawn with a small net, and 

 " upwards of twenty fish taken to the shore in the 

 " presence of scores of fishermen and others, when 

 " it appeared to all present, that the whitings and 

 " many of the fry put in, in May 1812, had fairly 



