RECENT RESEARCH UPON SALMON 229 
seen kelts in pursuit of salmon fry ; and they could not pursue 
them without being seen, inasmuch as fry and parr remain 
constantly in the shallows, and kelts must be looked for in the 
deep, slow parts of a river. In the second place, in 1880, six 
years before Professor Seeley’s book was published, Professor 
Miescher Ruesch had contributed to the literature of the Berlin 
Fisheries Exhibition a report upon his prolonged experiments 
and observation upon the salmon of the Rhine. 
He stated that in a series of nearly 2,000 salmon taken 
and examined in the upper waters of that river, he found 
evidence of feeding in the stomachs of two only, both of 
them male kelts. In the stomach of one of these were 
the scales of a cyprinoid fish (dace, roach, or minnow), 
and in that of the other was an acid secretion showing 
that digestion had been going on. He described the 
stomachs and gullets of salmon taken at Basel, 500 
miles up the Rhine, as being contracted, wrinkled, and 
folded, in strong contrast with the distended stomachs and 
gullets of salmon taken at sea, whence he drew the conclusion 
that “the Rhine salmon from its ascent from the sea to its 
spawning, and also after this, as a rule takes no nourishment.” 
Now, that Professor Seeley, who describes himself on 
his title-page as foreign correspondent of certain scientific 
bodies in Europe and America, should have ignored or failed 
to acquaint himself with the result of Professor Miescher 
Ruesch’s observations, is a striking illustration of the loose 
way in which salmon problems have been handled in the 
past. Professor Seeley, disregarding, or ignorant of, the only 
direct evidence upon the feeding of kelt salmon, has repeated 
the mischievous and baseless charge of cannibalism made 
against them by people who cannot be made to under- 
stand the nature of scientific evidence. The whole 
hypothesis rests upon the esurient, emaciated aspect of the 
kelt, and his presence in the same river with thousands of 
edible little members of his own species—surely not firm 
