192 WHAT DO SALMON EAT ? [CHAP. v. 



their visit to the salt water that they could proceed to no great 

 distance from the mouth of the river which admitted them to 

 the sea. Hundreds of fish were dissected in order to ascertain 

 what they fed upon ; but only on very rare occasions could 

 any traces of food be found in their stomachs. What, then, 

 do the salmon live upon ? was asked. It is quite clear that 

 salmon obtain in the sea some kind of food for which they 

 have a peculiar liking, and upon which they rapidly grow fat ; 

 and it is very well known that after they return to the fresh 

 water they begin to lose their flesh and fall off in condition. 

 The rapid growth of the fish seems to imply that its digestion 

 must be rapid, and may perhaps account for there never being 

 food in its stomach when found ; although I am bound to 

 mention that one gentleman who writes on this subject ac- 

 counts for the emptiness of the stomach by asserting that the 

 salmon vomits at the moment of being taken. The codfish 

 again is frequently found with its stomach crowded ; in fact, I 

 have seen the stomach of a large cod which formed quite a 

 small museum, having a large variety of articles " on board," 

 as the fisherman said who caught it. Salmon seldom now 

 attain a weight of more than from fifteen to eighteen pounds. 

 Long ago sixty-pound fish were by no means rare, and twelve 

 years back salmon weighing thirty and forty pounds used 

 frequently to be seen on our fishmongers' counters. In the 

 golden age of the fisheries salmon are said to have been very 

 plentiful, and attainable for food by all classes of the com- 

 munity, the price being a mere trifle ; but railways now carry 

 away our sea produce with such rapidity to far-off cities and 

 populous towns, where there is an increasing demand that the 

 price has risen to such a point as to make this fish a luxury 

 for the rich, and so induce the capture of salmon of all 

 weights. On all these points there has been a great amount 

 of disputation, chiefly carried on in the Transactions of learned 

 societies, and not therefore accessible to the general reader. 



