SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 121 



Here, then, is a direct admission of all that we have been 

 maintaining. The different BKEEDS belonging to the DIFFERENT 

 RIVERS is fairly acknowledged ; and it is for the Doctor to 

 show how there could be different breeds with promiscuous 

 intermixture, or if the fish did not keep separately in the sea, 

 and return to their respective rivers. If this was not the case, 

 no river could have a different breed, for all the breeds would 

 be mixed. The breed that would be in one river one year, 

 might be in another river, mixed with other breeds, the next. 

 The Doctor's argument is, therefore, at perfect variance with it- 

 self. It is, in fact, nonsense. Does he suppose, too, that Omni- 

 science, when he created grampusses and seals and salmon, did 

 not foresee the effects that would result from such persecution, 

 as he calls it a persecution that is common to all the animal 

 race, on land and in water and so regulate the instincts of the 

 salmon as to prevent the effects which the Doctor conceives must 

 arise from it ? The fact that the salmon DO return to their own 

 rivers, and that each river STILL continues to possess its own 

 peculiar variety of the species, shows that he is mistaken. 



The Committee ask the Doctor, 



" Do you think that the fish of a particular river can be distin- 

 guished from the fish of other rivers?" " I have heard experienced 

 fishermen make the assertion, and I have heard other experienced 

 fishermen give a flat contradiction to such a statement so I have 

 much hesitation in admitting that they are readily distinguished." 



If there are, as the Doctor has said, different breeds belonging 

 to different rivers, how does he suppose there can be different 

 breeds, if they cannot be distinguished from each other ? Can 

 there be a difference without a distinction ? If the different 

 breeds cannot be distinguished, is it not nonsense to say there 

 are different breeds ? Whatever ignorant fishermen might have 

 said, the Doctor should not advance an inconsistency. When 

 so logical a head admits a fact, it should not deny the conclusion 

 that must necessarily result from it. 



The Committee farther ask, 



" Is it not a fact that salmon differ very much in form?" " It 

 certainly is a fact that salmon do differ very considerably in point of 

 form from one another, as I have repeatedly witnessed by looking 



