254 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



rivers Exe and Dart, and fifty peal (grilse ?). In these he 

 found eels, loach, minnows, gudgeon, sand-eels, shrimp, 

 &c., an eel half-digested a foot long, and records a carp 

 taken from a salmon caught in Hampshire waters. Another 

 correspondent of the Field t February 20, 1886, a friend of 

 Mr. G. M. Kelson, says : " I have seen salmon feeding in 

 both rivers and lakes, and am simply astonished that any 

 person should maintain they do not. A salmon caught at 

 Kincardine had in its stomach seven sparlings, besides 

 small shrimps ; another, caught high up the Forth at Pol- 

 naise, contained a smolt and eighteen shrimps ; one taken 

 at Craiguith crieves, twenty-seven young eels ; others have 

 swallowed a trout fully half a pound and every imaginable 

 insect, flies, beetles, worms, and spiders ; so it is all non- 

 sense to say that salmon when in fresh water live upon 

 love. In 1844 two salmon caught in Loch Tay, in May, 

 had in their stomachs one, and two young char quite entire, 

 besides partially digested pieces of others." 



Some of the fishermen on the Severn say that elvers are 

 largely consumed by salmon, and on the Usk there is a 

 saying, " A good year for prides (small lamperns), a good 

 year for salmon." 



It has often been stated that different rivers have their 

 own variety of salmon. Robertson, head fisherman on the 

 Lochy for many years, has told us that he could always 

 distinguish a Lochy salmon from a Spean salmon. The 

 fishermen of the Tay say that they can at once tell a Lyon 

 salmon from a Tay salmon. The difference appears to be 

 in the length or breadth of the fish. 



Much has been written upon the leaping powers of the 

 salmon. It has been stated by many writers that a salmon 

 can spring perpendicularly from ten to fourteen feet. 



Taylor (" Angling in All its Branches ") says : " It is 

 hardly credible by those who have not witnessed it that 

 these fish will leap full twelve feet perpendicularly nay, 

 allowing for the curvature, they must sometimes leap six- 

 teen to eighteen feet." 



Cholmondeley Pennell ("Angler Naturalist") says the 

 limit certainly does not exceed twelve or fourteen feet, but 



