SALMONIDyE 



GEBAT BEITAIN AND IBELAND. 



Among tlio indigenous fislies of tlic Britisli Isles, those belonging to the sfihnon 

 family are universally admitted to rank second to none in vahie, whether regarded 

 as food, as affording sport, or interesting objects for study either in their natural 

 conditions of life or subsequent to changes accidentally effected in their habits or 

 purposely caused by fish-culturists. Composed of forms that pass the whole or a 

 portion of their existence in salt or in fresh water, they arc distributed from 

 a high inland elevation (in some countries even the snow-line) through the 

 lakes and other large pieces of water, the rivers, the streams, and the neighbouring 

 seas. Dispersed over such a wide and varied area the different species frequenting 

 the littoi'al districts, estuaries, or fresh watei^s, show, as might be anticipated, 

 many local peculiarities in size, form, and colour, generally dependant on the 

 character of the waters they inhabit, the food available for their subsistence, the 

 circumstances of temperature to ivhich they are subject, or to temporary condi- 

 tions in the fishes themselves. 



In searching the literature of the ancients respecting the salmon family, we 

 do not observe that Sahno solar appears to have been known to the Greeks, 

 -^lian* alludes to a spotted fish in Macedonia that in his days was captured by 

 means of an artificial fly, the mode of manufacturing which he detailed. It is not 

 unlikely that he referred to the trout, or possibly the char, while the species he 

 called Thymahis, found in the Ticino and Adige, is doubtless the grayling, still 

 existent there. The name suggests the thyme-like odour that some persons have 

 observed to be given off by these fish when fresh from the stream. 



If w^e turn to the Latins we find that Pliny, the elder, in the first century of 

 the Christian era referred to the salmon, f i-emarking that in Aquitaine it was 

 preferred to all the fishes of the sea. In the fourth century, Ausonius, a native of 

 Bordeaux, one of their poets whose writings have descended to our times, descanted 

 in the most favourable terms on this fish. He mentioned it in his poem "Mosella," 

 being a description of the river Moselle, and he observed that it has red flesh, and 

 springs by strokes of its broad tail from the lower into the higher w^aters above it. 

 He alluded to three species, the salar, or our brook trout: — 

 " Purpureisque Salar, stellatus tergora guttis," 

 to the salmon in the lines — 



"Nee te puniceo rutilantem viscere, Sahno, 

 Transierim," 



and to the sea-trout, or as some have termed it the salmon-trout — 



" Teque inter species geminas, neutrumquo et utrumquc, 

 Qui necdum salmo, nee jam salar, ambiquusque 

 Amborum medio Fario intereepte sub uevo? " 



It is clear that Ausonius referred to two distinct species, the brook trout and 



* iElian is supposed to have been born at Corycus, or at Anazarba in Cilicia, and is said to 

 have flourished about a.d. 180. 



t It has been surmised that the term Salmo was derived from " Sahnona," a tributary of the 

 Moselle, mentioned by Ausonius, and that salar had its origin from " salire," " to leap." 



