24 THE LIFE OF THE SALMON 



A certain number of stray specimens have from 

 time to time been captured, which have given us 

 gHmpses of the salmon's development in this stage. 

 When trawling with a shrimp net for experimental 

 purposes in May 1901, two miles off Blackpool, i.e., 

 about twenty miles from the mouth of the Ribble, 

 Mr. Archer was fortunate enough to catch a 

 young salmonid 7 inches in length, which Professor 

 Herdman and Dr. Noel Paton considered to be a 

 salmon smolt. Professor Herdman found the stomach 

 and intestines fully charged with nourishment. The 

 remains of two young sprats were in the stomach, and 

 the scales of other sprats or of young herring could be 

 distinguished in the contentsof the intestines, together 

 with the remains of small crustaceans (copepods), 

 which, however, may have been ingested from the 

 swallowed fish, since sprats and herring feed largely 

 on copepods. This smolt had apparently got clear 

 away from the mouth of any river, and had com- 

 menced to absorb the particular kind of nourishment 

 which we know the adult salmon fattens upon. 

 Herr Dahl reports * receiving from mackerel fishers 

 who had been working off the coast of Norway three 

 young salmon measuring respectively 17'5, 39'0, and 

 43-0 cm. (6f, 15f, and 17 inches) ; and by fishing 

 with fixed engines of small mesh he himself secured at 

 the island of Garten, in the Trondhjem Fjord, a few 

 small salmon measuring from 45 to 70 cm. (17|- to 

 27 J inches). The same writer, who has made a most 

 exhaustive search in European museums for speci- 

 mens of young salmon, reports that in Bergen 



* " CErret og Unglaks." Christiania, 1902. 



