SAL MO N. 



593 



there are not many, and they are chiefly in those 

 rivers which have their sources in cold and bleak 

 districts. 



After the present fishes have performed their 

 grand work in the general economy of the system 

 of life, by nursing a succession of future salmon, they 

 rest for a little in the upland pools ; and then de- 

 scend, first by very short stages, and never with that 

 vigour and animation which they display in ascend- 

 ing. Their descent is in the winter, or the very early 

 spring, and the very same sensibility to the weather 

 which makes them show themselves on the ascent, 

 by being on the shallows or near the surface, sends 

 them into concealment on their descent. The air 

 is then much colder than the water, and the shallows 

 are much colder than the depths, which is the very 

 reverse of the state of things when the fish come 

 most abundantly into the rivers. Their food is also 

 down in the winter, and the very early spring, and up 

 when the season is advanced, by the very same law 

 of nature which regulates the movements of the sal- 

 mon. These descents are thus from pool to pool, 

 and as they pass they keep the deepest parts of the 

 channels. The fish are weak and exhausted, unable 

 for much exertion and unwholesome as food, while 

 they are descending ; and nature harmonises with 

 them, so that they reach the estuaries with little dimi- 

 nution of their numbers, compared with what they 

 sustain on the ascent. In ascending, too, they have 

 the current to contend with, though the fact of their 

 keeping near the banks helps them in their ascent, 

 by giving them the advantage of the eddies. But in 

 descending, when they are weak they have the advan- 

 tage of the deep water, and they have it the more 

 from keeping in the stream. 



These adaptations, though only part of what are to 

 be met with in the whole of nature, have much of 

 very pleasing instruction in them, if our limits would 

 permit us to point it out ; and probably there are 

 few subjects of a nature so very familiar, which are 

 better calculated to show man the advantages of his 

 situation, and the means of turning those advantages 

 to account, than the economy of the salmon. If all 

 those that enter a good salmon river were to spawn 

 there, and all the eggs were to come to maturity, 

 there would not be room, far less food, for the young. 

 Thus when they are in the very best condition, they 

 come into the situations where man can most easily 

 capture them and turn them to account as an article 

 of merchandise. And they come so much loaded 

 with wealth, that though nearly ninety-nine out of 

 every hundred were to be taken, the remaining one 

 would replace the waste more than a hundredfold. 

 Therefore, besides the most valuable and inviting 

 store which they offer to man, there is still a great sur- 

 plus for the general purposes of nature ; and there 

 are many animals in and upon the water which would 

 perish of want if it were not for the supply afforded 

 them in the eggs and the fry of the salmon. We may 

 mention one the Dipper, which is often found on 

 the rocks and runs of the mountain streams, caroling 

 as blithely as a lark in the dawn of the spring, while 

 the snow on the mountain yet remains pure and un- 

 spotted in its whiteness ; but were it not for the eggs 

 of the salmon, and other fishes of the same family, 

 the dipper would be mute and motionless. 



In this manner do the productions of nature sup- 

 port each other, and one race actually has its own 

 preservation in the supporting of another ; and though 



NAT. HIST. VOL. III. 



man as an intellectual being cannot be said to be 

 wholly within and under the laws of this wonderful 

 system of physical nature, yet the system is so 

 adapted as not only to include him as a member, but 

 actually to measure his enjoyment in proportion as 

 he can bring his intellectual powers to bear with 

 rational knowledge and proper effect upon that part 

 of the system which is wholly physical. Look at any 

 natural production, animal or vegetable, which man 

 has with proper knowledge of its nature, taken, we 

 will not say under his protection (for protection is 

 of a higher order), but under his management ; and 

 say, whether improvement and increase have not been 

 the invariable results. Are there fewer sheep and 

 oxen, because they are used largely for food, or 

 fewer horses because they are worked in England, 

 than there would be if they were all left to nature, 

 and man were a naked savage in the woods ? Cer- 

 tainly not. It is the ignorant man, who comes to 

 the rest of nature with only his physical adaptations, 

 as if he also were a beast, that spoils and depopu- 

 lates nature : the man who acts with knowledge im- 

 proves and multiplies ; and wild nature partakes in 

 the blessings of civilisation. 



When the descending salmon reach the brackish 

 water in the estuaries, which is the very time when 

 life in that most fertile of all situations, is in the prime 

 of its activity and abundance, they tarry for a long 

 time, and regain their flesh and continue to increase 

 in size. It is probable that the young of the year do 

 not go very far below the limit of the brackish water, 

 for they begin to ascend at an early period of the sea- 

 son. They are obtained of two or three pounds 

 weight about the end of June, and much more than 

 that in August ; and they continue to furnish a supply 

 at the time when older salmon are not fit for the market. 



Perhaps the salmon go farther out to sea as they 

 get older ; but still they cannot go very far at any 

 time. They are not pillager sea-fishes, or properly 

 sea fishes at all, they are fishes of the streams, the 

 estuaries, and the shore. They are also not bot- 

 tom fishes ; for the soft-finned bottom fishes are 

 formed for ascent and descent, by having the ventral 

 fins as far forward as the pectorals ; whereas all the 

 salmon have them abdominal, and are thus formed 

 for straightforward motion. Salmon cannot there- 

 fore go to those depths of the sea which may be re- 

 garded as the utmost limits of fertility at the bottom. 

 The bottom fishes then all have spinous fins, generally 

 fit for being weapons ; great heads, and large eyes 

 directed upwards, and the lateral fins concentrated 

 on the fore part of the body. The salmon have small 

 heads, and small eyes directed laterally ; and they 

 are but little fitted for motion in ascent or descent, 

 although finely formed for progressive motion. 



From these circumstances, or rather from the in- 

 duction of those to which they lead, there may be 

 drawn one of the most important conclusions con- 

 nected with the whole economy of the sea. We have 

 no room for the expansion of these ; but the hints 

 which we have given may render them easy to any 

 one ; and the result is this ; the salmon which are 

 bred in a river can never go to any great distance 

 from that river, or pass their time at very great depth 

 in the sea. They very speedily regain their flesh 

 in the brackish water ; therefore the conclusion is, that 

 if the habits of salmon were properly known, we 

 might have an uninterrupted supply of salmon, in the 

 very best condition, all the year round* 

 PP 



