NATURAL HISTORY 3 



Bromley Davenport is a delightful finish to a days 

 sport. If the supply of fishing books is large, so also 

 is the demand ; and if I succeed in awaking pleasant 

 recollections in the minds of experts, and exciting 

 the tiro to higher ambitions, my aim will be accom- 

 plished. 



British migratory salmonidae may for all practical 

 purposes be confined to three species : — the salmon, 

 the bull-trout, and the sea-trout. These three 

 vary greatly in different localities, in shape, appear- 

 ance, and size, and other characteristics, and many 

 naturalists subdivide the genus differently into from 

 two to seven species. Day enumerates eighteen 

 different authorities, ranging over two centuries, from 

 Willoughby's ' Historia Piscium,' 1686, to Dr. 

 Gunther's 'Catalogue of Fishes in the British Museum,' 

 in 1866, no two of whom arrive at precisely identical 

 conclusions ; however, it matters little to the fisher- 

 man whether peel and grilse, sewin and sea-trout, 

 finnock and herling are local varieties, distinct 

 species, or different names for the same fish. They 

 are all at certain periods anadromous — that is to say, 

 they run up rivers to breed and spawn in the late 

 autumn in redds or beds in the gravel, their young, 

 the pany return later to the sea after acquiring the 

 silvery appearance under which they bear the name of 



b 2 



