120 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



show the absurdity of supposing that salmon are constantly 

 running down from the rivers to the sea for which there is 

 not a particle of proof. 



The worthy Doctor calls the salmon a sea fish, because he 

 resides, during his migration, in the sea. On the same prin- 

 ciple, he might call a Highland stot, bred in Skye and fed in 

 Yorkshire, an English bullock. He, however, again admits, as 

 we shall see immediately, that salmon belong to the rivers ; 

 and if they belong to the rivers, how can they belong to the 

 sea, or be sea fishes ? 



The Committee ask him, 



" Do you believe that the fish always return to the same rivers?" 

 "Generally speaking," says he, "they may, perhaps, endeavour to 

 return j but there are many circumstances to derange their course, 

 so as in fact to render it impossible that they should return to the 

 river." 



"But if they live, they are most likely to return to the river in 

 which they were bred?" " Yes; if they live, and are not deranged 

 in their movements conditions not likely ever to occur." 



But why, Doctor, should they endeavour to return to the 

 rivers in which they were bred, unless an instinct has been 

 implanted in them for that purpose ? Your admission of the 

 endeavour implies an admission of the instinct ; and yet you, 

 a naturalist, can suppose that the instinct is inadequate for the 

 purpose for which it was intended ; which, in other words, is 

 to deny the principle of perfection in the works of the Deity. 

 This we would not expect from a son of the church. Being 

 further pushed on the point by the Committee, the Doctor 

 continues, 



" The fish, after they have left the river, seem to retire to the 

 remoter parts of the ocean indeed, to parts with which we are wholly 

 unacquainted ; but we are in some measure acquainted with the 

 number of foes which unceasingly persecute them, and which must 

 necessarily mix the families, or tribes, BELONGING to the different 

 estuaries, and to the different rivers connected with those estuaries, 

 and as salmon are obviously gregarious animals, it seems difficult to 

 conceive how, after such intermixture and persecution, the different 

 BREEDS of fish, of the DIFFERENT RIVERS, could again separate from 

 the common flock, to collect into original groups. 



