SALMON AFTER SPAWNING. 17 
which journal they appeared in an article contributed by 
me some years ago. 
The salmon is in primest condition when the eggs are 
least developed and the body is fattest. The development 
of the roe causes a serious drain upon the vital resources of 
the fish, which is the more severe because the greatest 
development of milt and ova takes place while the fish is in 
fresh waters, where it eats little or nothing. This drain is 
only met by drawing upon the supplies of fat which the fish 
has laid up while in the sea, and, according as it has been 
Lig. V. 
HEAD OF A KELT. 
well fed or starved, so its progeny will be abundant and 
strong, or few, puny, and weak. The store of fat upon the 
appendices pylorice is gradually absorbed, and the fatty oils, 
with which the whole body is permeated, follow suit, till the 
flesh becomes hard, dry, and tasteless. The accompanying 
woodcuts represent the relative changes which take place 
in the pyloric appendages and the milt of a male salmon as 
the roe develops. Figure 6 shows the pylorics (f) large 
and full of fat, while the milt (v7) is only partially developed, 
@ being the cesophagus and z the intestines. Figure 7 
shows the milt fully developed and ready to be emitted, 
while the pylorics have shrunk to a shrivelled mass of 
membranous tissue. 
(e 
