52 MIGRATION OF SALMON. 



with an artificial fly and other baits, upwards of forty pounds 

 in weight." 



Passing Grove's shop in Bond-street about a month ago, I 

 remarked an immense fish extended in the window ; I stopped 

 to inquire what its weight might be, and w r as informed that it 

 weighed forty-five pounds. It had been a little too long on 

 its passage from Scotland, and I should be inclined to say, that 

 at best it was a coarse flavoured fish, but in its present state a 

 most indifferent one. 



The migratory habits of the salmon, and the instinct with 

 which it periodically revisits its native river, are curious cir~ 

 cumstances in the natural history of this fish. As the swallow ' 

 returns annually to its nest, as certainly the salmon repairs 

 to the same spot in which to deposit its ova. Many interest- 

 ing experiments have established this fact. M. de Lalande 

 fastened a copper ring round a salmon's tail, and found that 

 for three successive seasons it returned to the same place. 

 Dr. Bloch states, that gold and silver rings have been attached, 

 by Eastern princes to salmon, to prove that a communication 

 existed between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian and Nor- 

 thern seas, and that the experiment succeeded. Shaw, in his 

 Zoology, mentions that a salmon of seven pounds and three- 

 quarters was marked with scissors on the back, fin, and tail, 

 and turned out on the 7th of February, and that it was retaken 

 in March of the succeeding year, and found to have increased 

 to the amazing size of seventeen pounds and a half. This 

 statement, by the by, is at variance with the theory of Dr. 

 Bloch, who estimates the weight of a five or six year old sal- 

 mon at but ten or twelve pounds. 



That the salmon should lose condition rapidly on quitting 

 the sea for the fresh water, may be inferred from a fact agreed 

 upon by naturalists, that during the period of spawning, the 

 fish neglects feeding. In this peculiar habit the salmon, how- 

 ever, is not singular, for animals of the Phocse tribe, in breed- 

 ing-time exercise a similar abstinence. On opening a salmon, 

 at any season, no food will be discovered, and the contents 

 of the stomach will be confined to a small quantity of yel- 

 lowish fluid and tape- worms, which are generated there. Sir 

 Humphry Davy believes that occasionally food may be found. 

 I have seen thousands opened preparatory to being salted, and 

 I never observed any thing but this fluid and tape -worms. 

 Another circumstance may be stated as a curious proof of 



