OF GREAT BRITAIN. 19 



where the eggs are approaching the time of 

 hatching. 



Into this bed, during the preceding three months, 

 a dozen females have each poured the germs of, 

 say, from seventeen to twenty thousand Salmon, 

 which, if they all arrived at maturity, would repre- 

 sent in approximate figures some three million five 

 hundred thousand pounds' weight of wholesome 

 food, or a money-value of about ,160,000. Un- 

 fortunately, however, the fry in fact added to the 

 stock of the river are a mere fraction, and those 

 that survive to return as Grilse a very trifling frac- 

 tion of these numbers. The latter have been cal- 

 culated by Mr. Brown at about one in every 1,000, 

 and by Messrs. Ffennell and Ashworth at one in 

 every six thousand, of the original deposit of ova. 



The causes of this destruction are numerous. 

 From the first laying of the egg until the plunge of 

 the young Smolt into the tidal wave, and even after- 

 wards in the broader waters of the estuary or open 

 sea, a hundred wholesale depredators lie in wait 

 for it. First there are the shoals of hungry fish 

 of all kinds which prowl about the fords, pressing 

 close behind the spawner, and ready to fight for 

 the possession of her eggs almost before they are 

 laid ; then come the voracious larvse of the May- 

 fly and Stone-fly, and a host of kindred insects, 

 which work their way in amongst the gravel and 

 destroy, perhaps less ostentatiously, but not less 

 certainly. 



