T58 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 



any of them having been removed and buried along 

 with diseased salmon. The very existence of these 

 smaller vehicles of pestilence appears to have been 

 entirely ignored by those who are advocates for 

 stamping out the disease by removal. Whether they 

 all eventually die, or whether they recover, there is 

 no evidence forthcoming to show. Professor Huxley 

 states that there are fungi, other than that called 

 saprolegnia, which devour and destroy saprolegnia ; 

 therefore it is just possible that one or other of these 

 destroying fungi may have come in contact with such 

 diseased non-migratory fish as have survived, and 

 that some of them have thus got cured. The sapro- 

 legnia on the dead fish may have been destroyed in 

 like manner, and it is thus that the disease has 

 disappeared in rivers, to break out again on the re- 

 appearance of salmon, in which it may have lain 

 dormant during their sojourn in the sea. 



The foregoing theory may appear to the reader to 

 be more or less untenable. Granted that it is so, it 

 has still the merit that it is founded to a certain 



