22 SALMON-FISHEKY OF SCOTLAND. 



is formed of two rivers, which, hold their courses at nearly four miles 

 from each other till within four hundred yards of the sea, where they 

 unite. One of those rivers produces a short thick fish, the other a 

 long and lank one ; when the salmon return from the sea they go 

 each into their own river, as naturally as a horse goes to the stable 

 to which he has been long accustomed, and there is scarcely an in- 

 stance of a fish entering the river of which he is not a native. 



" It is no less remarkable that, when we fish in the sea, near the 

 mouths of the conjoined rivers, we find the salmon in two separate 

 shoals : and it very seldom happens that a fish, originally of the one 

 river, is found shoaling with those of the other." 



The grand point, then, that each salmon river possesses a 

 variety of the species peculiar to itself, and that all salmon are 

 forced, by a powerful instinct, implanted in them for the pur- 

 pose of continuing or perpetuating those varieties, to return 

 from their migration to the ocean, to their natal waters, may, 

 we think, be thus set at rest ; and if this is the case, it must be 

 quite obvious that, if there were a thousand stake-nets, or other 

 fishings on the coasts, of either the sea or estuaries, they could 

 add nothing to the general supply, or catch a single salmon, 

 save by interception on its progress to its river. The farther 

 we trace the instincts and habits of the fish, the stronger and 

 more invulnerable will this truth appear. 



The fry, or smolts, become vivified towards the beginning of 

 March ; and about the middle of April they begin to descend 

 the rivers in their migration to the ocean, always keeping to- 

 gether in close ranks or shoals, even in going down the rivers, 

 on their grand migratory voyage. To what regions of the 

 deep these little beings, led by nature from their parent streams, 

 and the kelts, or spent fish, direct their migratory course, is 

 one of those points in the history of salmon which has, in all 

 ages, puzzled the most experienced salmon-fishers to ascertain ; 

 which we can do nothing more than form random conjectures 

 about, and which is likely to continue in darkness, unless, as 

 we said, some friendly mermaid shall whisper a word of infor- 

 mation into the ear of some favoured fisher on the subject. 

 Some persons have supposed that salmon do not go far from 

 the land, but we never could learn that they had any grounds 

 for thinking so, or that a single fact could be adduced in sup- 



