CHAPTER V. 



THE NATURAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF 

 THE SALMON. 



The Salmon our best-known Fish Controversies and Anomalies Food of 

 Salmon The Parr Controversy Experiments by Shaw, Young, and 

 Hogg Grilse : its Rate of Growth Do Salmon make Two Voyages to 

 the Sea in each Year ? The Best Way of marking Young Salmon 

 Enemies of the Fish Avarice of the Lessees The Khine Salmon Size 

 of Fish Killing of Grilse Rivers Tay, Spey, Tweed, Severn, etc. 

 The Tay Fisheries Report on English Fisheries Upper and Lower 

 Proprietors. 



SO many books have been written during the last few 

 years about this beautiful and valuable animal that I 

 do not require to occupy a very large portion of this work 

 with either its natural or economic history ; for of the two 

 hundred and fifty kinds of fish which inhabit the rivers and 

 seas of Britain, the salmon (Salmo salar) is the one about 

 which we know more than any other, and chiefly for these 

 reasons : It is of greater value as property than any other 

 fish ; its large size better admits of observation than smaller 

 members of the fish tribe ; and, in consequence of its 

 migratory instinct, we have access to it at those seasons of 

 its life when to observe its habits is the certain road to infor- 

 mation. And yet, with all these advantages, or rather in 

 consequence of them, there has been a vast amount of 

 controversy, oral and written, as to the birth, breeding, 



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