SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 17 



fish itself, but also in a legal view, for regulating the rights of 

 parties, as will be hereafter shown ; and we must, therefore, as 

 it seems to be still doubted by many, be permitted to dwell 

 upon it at some length. In one river, for instance, a large breed 

 is found, averaging, perhaps, twenty pounds weight, while in 

 the very next river there is a small breed, averaging scarcely 

 seven pounds. In some rivers the salmon are long and narrow, 

 or lank ; in others broad and short so broad and so short, that 

 when cut up they are nearly circular. In one river we find all 

 the salmon straight in the back in another, round or hog- 

 backed. In some rivers their heads are all large and clumsy 

 in others, small and neat. Even in the spots and scales there 

 is often a visible difference. In short, the distinctions are so 

 numerous that it is needless to detail them. The salmon of 

 some rivers are so strongly marked that a stranger would re- 

 cognise them at a glance, while he could only be sensible of 

 the distinctions between those of others by comparing them, 

 when the difference would strike him at once. Now, when 

 salmon of exactly the same shape and description, and no 

 others, are uniformly found in the same river, where can there 

 be room for doubt on the subject ? Or how could this be the 

 case if they did not return to breed in it ? Will any man say 

 it is possible it could be so, if other or different breeds en- 

 tered it that is, if salmon entered rivers by chance, or pro- 

 miscuously ? When, then, people talk of the particular fish of 

 different rivers, under the chance system, they speak nonsense, 

 since, under such a system, all the breeds would be mixed 

 together so that a river, like the Shannon, which had a large 

 breed one year, might have a small breed the next. The fact 

 of the different varieties found in the different rivers, admits of 

 even legal proof, if the evidence of the senses can be deemed 

 so. Many doubt it, for no other reason than because they 

 think it wonderful ; but what is there in the works of nature, 

 when closely examined, that is not so? If no two human 

 faces, or voices, no two flowers, no two leaves of a tree, are 

 absolutely alike if the varieties of nature are boundless 

 where is the great cause of wonder that each salmon-river 

 shoiild possess a variety of the salmon species belonging to itself ? 



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