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will, of course, apply to molluscs, small crustaceans, &c. A curious illus- 

 tration of this may be found in the fact that where small fish are met with in 

 our rivulets few slirimps, if any, will be found, but trace the rivulet upwards 

 till the sin imps become numerous and you may rest assured that you are 

 above the fish, and that no more will be caught. With respect to those flies, 

 grasshoppers, beetles, moths, &c., which only tumble into the water, surely 

 I need not say much, except that the individual who wants more of theni than 

 lean show him in a warm summer's day and evening must,indeed, be greedy 

 and insensible to the attacks of march-flies, mosquitoes, &;c. 



Mr. Frank Buckland in his book on fish-hatching says that there is a great 

 difference in the size of the smolts of the same age in the salmon ponds at 

 Stormontfield on the Tay, and that three, of various sizes, having been sent 

 to him for examination, he ascertained that the food contained in their 

 stomachs differed in each. That in the largest consisted entirely of small 

 shell-fish {limnecc). Our indigenous fresh water univalves, though numerous in 

 places, are small, and I have, therefore, introduced from England two species 

 of Limnea and one of Planorbis, the two former are now thoroughly esta- 

 blished, I have turned out thousands, and shall be glad to supply either 

 shells or spawn to any Fellows of the Society who have ponds. The quantity 

 of food produce! by these shells may be imagined when I tell you that the 

 progeny of one pair, if protected, weighs pounds in the second year, and tons 

 in the third. 



It has been over and over again argued that many of the grilse and salmon 

 do not feed at all in the fresh water, but this notion is fast losing favor, and 

 I have little doubt that, though their principal feeding is done in the salt 

 water, still a large quantity of food is consumed in the fresh. Both grilse and 

 salmon are often taken in fresh water, with the minnow, when nothing else will 

 stir them. May we not hope, therefore, that the hosts of small tish, poured 

 into our large rivers by every freshet down the brooks, will prove highly 

 acceptable to generations of salmon yet unborn. 



Of the food of the grilse and salmon in brackish and salt water, little was 

 known till recently, partly owing to the difficulty of reconciling conflicting 

 statements, and still more to the absence of scientific research in this direction. 

 If analogy, based upon the comparative anatomy of the salmon, is of any 

 avail, it must lead every thinking man to the conclusion that this handsome 

 swift fish, with his powerful toothed jaws and muscular stomach, feeds princi- 

 pally on smaller fish and crustaceans. The salmon (like many of our sea fish) 

 frequently disgorges the contents of the stomach the instant it finds itself in 

 danger from nets or otherwise ; and this habit has induced the popular belief 

 that nothing has ever been found in them to lead to a knowledge of their food. 

 Many theories on the subject have been started, one (for which high authority 

 is quoted) is, that they feed almost entirely on the spawn of certain echinoder • 

 mata (such as sea-urchins, &c,), and this theory was based on the fact, that 

 though the salmon caught in salt water rarely contained food in the stomach, 

 this food, when present, consisted of minute quantities of the small eggs of 

 echini, remaining tangled in the mucus which invariably lines the stomach. Is 

 it not most probable that the salmon in these instances had bolted echinus 

 and spawn altogether, but that when the shell and other parts of the sea 

 urchin were disgorged, some few ova remained behind ? 



In an able article on the food of the salmon, written by Dr. "W. C. 

 Mcintosh, and recently published in the Journal of the Proceedings of the 

 Linnean Society, incontestible proof is given that the vertebrae and other 

 solid portions of fish, of sizes, varying from mere fry to seven or eight inches 

 in length, were taken out of many fresh run salmon. 



Believing, as I do, that small fish and crustaceans will form the chief requi- 

 sites, it only remains for me to show that our brackish and salt waters are 

 well supplied with them. 



Everyone who has visited New Norfolk must remember the wide reaches of 

 ihe Derwent above and below Bridgewater, and that at low tide large patches of 

 a grass-like water weed are there seen covering shallow portions of the river. 

 A considerable part of the river bottom is covered with that same weed, and I 

 once had an admirable opportunity of judging of the vast quantity of 

 animal life bred under its friendly shelter. A small rivulet runs from the 

 hills on South Bruni into Adventure Bay. The sands at its outlet are silted 

 tip by northerly gales, and its waters, thus backed up, generally form, through- 

 out the summer, a large brackish lagoon, abounding in bream, mullet, and 

 other estuary fish common at Bridgewater; the bottom of this lagoon is 

 aovered with the grass-like weed of which i have spoken, and it is therefore a 

 fair inference that it is inhabited by the same forms of animal life. 



When, owing to continued rains, the water in this lagoon rises sufficiently to 



