spri>;g and autumn migrations of salmon. 309 



be strengthened by the fact that the fat upon the pyloric 

 appendages of most of the *' fresh-run "' British fish which 

 I have examined is not nearly so abundant as on those 

 of the fresh fish later in the season ; these very fish, if 

 there had been no floods in the spring, would probably 

 have remained in the sea, and would have appeared in 

 the river either in the first floods in July or August, or 

 if there were no floods in these months, they w^ould have 

 come up in'November and December, as the large fish 

 which (as experience shows) are generally the latest to 

 come into the river, and which, for the most part, spawn 

 in the lower portions of the river. 



These fi-esh-rmrfish, which form the '* secondary mi- 

 gration," are certainly not, as some suppose, barren fish ; 

 they will, I believe, spawn in the following winter : thus 

 a fish ascending the river in the month of February, 

 1880, will, if not caught, deposit her eggs about Christ- 

 mas, 1880, or even earUer ; these fish do not, as a rule, 

 come in large numbers, they are caught here and there 



singly. 



Both to the angler and the owners of commercial 

 fisheries they are of greatest importance, — to the one as 

 ailbrding excellent sport, and to the other as fetching 

 large prices in the market. It becomes, therefore, a 

 loroblem of the greatest importance, severely taxing the 

 resources of science, to multiply their number. 



CATHEDRALS AND SALMON. 



Among the many facts that have come under my 

 observation during my official jom^neys in the inspection 

 of salmon rivers, there is one that has struck me very 

 forcibly, viz., that there is almost invariably a cathedi-al 

 town or towns upon the chief of our salmon rivers. 

 This is to my mind by no means a coincidence, but a 



