the present day, we go through the markets of Greece, -vee fiud a 

 large prej)onderance of scales over feathers. Indeed, Strabo, 

 Plutarch, and others, tell us of a people called IChthyophagi (fish- 

 eaters), who, although they possessed cattle, made no other use of 

 them but to feed their fishes ! 



Yet early as we find the taste for fish, and for their natural 

 history, pervading the European world, and much as it has been 

 cultivated of late, the history of one of the finest fish that swims 

 — the salmon — is to this hour a matter of dispute. 



In our British rivers, we have, at least, fifty-four species of 

 fish ; of which number, thirty-one, if not more, are found in this 

 county. 



Of the salmonidoe, we have three species — the salmon, the 

 common trout, and the grayling ; with, I believe, an occasional 

 visit from two others — the sewin and the salmon trout. Of these, 

 pre-eminence being universally accorded to the salmon, and in 

 consequence of its commercial importance, and its hitherto dis- 

 puted descent, a larger portion of this paper will be appropriated 

 to that part of our present subject, than to any other. 



A very remarkable feature, disclosed by comparative anatomy, 

 may here bo mentioned ; not only as in its connection with the 

 gradual rise in the types of organized life, but as illustrated by 

 Ichthyology : — most, if not all creatures, in their embryo or early 

 condition, pass through the gradations — perhaps they must bo 

 considered degradations — of inferior life. The whole of the fossil 

 fish of the Devonian era (for previous to that, geologists acknow- 

 ledge but limited and obscure traces of this section of animate 

 nature,) are distinguished by tho tail, formed of two branches of 

 greatly unequal length. This one-sided sort of tail, is the char- 

 acteristic of higher orders, at a certain point of their embryonic 

 history. Such is the case with the salmon; which, as an embryo, 

 possesses the tail, and also the mouth and vertibral column, of an 

 inferior class. 



By investigating the paternity of the fish, known by a great 

 variety of local names, such as fingerling, graveling, parr, pink, 



a2 



