GEN. SALMO. THE SALMON. 121 



vigour. On their return to the fresh water they 

 have acquired a weight of between two and three 

 pounds and upwards, and the larger individuals are 

 then called Gilse or Grilse, the smaller Salmon- 

 peal. During its subsequent visits to the sea, the 

 growth of the Salmon is equally considerable, and 

 in the course of a few seasons it attains to large di- 

 mensions. It is obvious that its food, when in the 

 sea, must be very different from that on which it 

 subsists in fresh water. In the former it seems to 

 consist of sand-eels and other small fishes ; also the 

 ova of various kinds of echinodermata and certain 

 Crustacea : in the latter, worms, aquatic insects, 

 and small fishes, form its chief nutriment. Its 

 powers of digestion seem to be unusually rapid, and 

 hence perhaps we may in some measure account for 

 the suddenness of its growth. When the stomach 

 is opened, seldom any thing is found in it except 

 a thick mucus, the food being speedily reduced to a 

 pulp, the nutritious portions assimilated, and the 

 rest passing into the intestines. They rise freely, 

 as every angler knows, to a fly, even within a short 

 distance of the sea; and are taken with various 

 kinds of bait, such as earth-worms, sand-eels, 

 &c. 



As our space confines us chiefly to the natural 

 history, properly so called, of our native fishes, we 

 cannot in this place offer any account of the fisheries 

 of this important species. Neither can we, for the 

 same reason, enter upon the different methods em- 

 ployed to capture it by the angler, who regards it 



