50 Sir W. Jardine on ihe Herlinff. 



were, some one which they preferred, shoals of this fish may Im; 

 seen coasting the bays and headlands, leaping and sporting in 

 great numbers, from about a pound to three or four in weight; 

 and in some of the smaller bays, the shoal could be traced seve- 

 ral times circling it, and apparently feeding. In these bays 

 they are occasionally taken with a common hang-net stretched 

 across ; and when angled for in the estuaries, with the ordinary 

 flies which are used in the rivers of the south for grilse, rose and 

 took freely so eagerly, that thirty-four were the produce of one 

 rod, engaged for about an hour and a half. They enter every 

 river and rivulet in immense numbers, and when fishing for the 

 salmon are annoying from their quantity. It is scarcely possible 

 at present to arrive with any certainty at the numbers of this fish. 

 They are a perquisite to the fishermen or kayners, who naturally 

 may not be willing to expose their whole profits, and nothing 

 but a salmon net of large mesh being used, the greater part of the 

 smaller fish escape. Two hundred are frequently taken at a 

 draft, and three hundred have occasionally been counted. The 

 food of those taken with the rod in the estuaries, appeared very 

 indiscriminate ; occasionally the remains of some small fish, which 

 were too much digested to be distinguished, sometimes any flies, 

 beetles, or other insects, which the wind or tide had carried out, 

 and of which Phylopertha vulgaris, or brachen-clock, in one 

 district, formed a great part ; but the most general food seemed 

 to be the Talitrns locusta, or common sand-hopper, with which 

 some of their stomachs were completely crammed. 



3. Salmo albus or Herling. — Our time did not permit us to 

 remain in Sutherlandshire, until the run of what the fishermen 

 call the smaller sea-trout, which commences about the middle of 

 July ; but by the attention and kindness of Mr Baigrie, facior 

 for the Scourie district, specimens put up in spirits were for- 

 warded to us from the Laxford, and, upon comparison, were 

 found to be identical with the herling of the Solway Frith, the 

 fish which Dr Flen)ing has given under the title of Salmo albus. 

 This is by far the most abundant species in the northern rivers, 

 and indeed, wherever it is found, as far as could be estimated by 

 Mr Baigrie, they enter the rivers in the proportion of about ten 

 to one of the first or early running fish. 



4. Salmo er'wx or Grey. — There is only another of the mi- 

 gratory salmon enumerated, viz. Salmo eriox, but no specimen 



