40 TOUR IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE. 



prey upon the fry, while trout and eels are feeding on them 

 under water. As soon as they reach the sea too, fish of all 

 kinds are ready to devour them. 



Mr. Young told me also that his young family of salmon 

 fry which he hatched and kept confined in ponds connected 

 with the river always became perfectly tame, and the 

 moment that he steps on the plank laid across the ponds for 

 the purpose of feeding the tish from, they all nock round 

 him ready to dart at the food he puts in. In some of the 

 ponds he had put a number of small eels, which soon grew in 

 size, and became as tame and familiar as the young salmon. 

 As the cold weather came on, the eels all disappeared, and 

 he supposed that they had managed to escape, led by their 

 instinct to take refuge in some deeper pools. However, one 

 fine spring day, when he had long ceased to think of his 

 slimy pets, he happened to pass over one of the planks, when 

 he was delighted to see them all issue out from under the 

 stones asking for food, as if a day only, instead of many 

 weeks, had passed since he last had fed them. Does not 

 this most clearly prove that eels lie dormant during cold 

 weather ? 



I asked Mr. Young if he could explain why at the mouths 

 of rivers, when angling, one always catches such a variety of 

 trout a variety which does not exist at some distance from 

 the sea, each and every stream having its own peculiar 

 species. His opinion, founded on practical, experiment and 

 long experience, coincided much with mine, founded on mere 

 casual and unscientific observation, namely, that the sea 

 trout and river trout sometimes breed with each other, thus 

 forming a great variety of shade and colour. He also states 

 that the female salmon will breed with a male trout, which 

 he says has been clearly proved by close observation, in the 

 following manner : A pair of salmon, male and female, 

 being seen forming their spawning-bed together, the male 

 salmon was killed with a spear and taken out of the water. 

 The female immediately dropped down the stream to the 

 next pool, and after a certain interval returned with another 

 male. He having shared the same fate as his predecessor, 

 the female again went down to the pool, and brought up 

 another male. The same process was gone on with of 

 spearing the male, till the widowed fish, finding no more of 

 her own kind remaining in the pool, returned at last accom- 

 panied by a large river trout, who assisted her in forming 



