ENORMOUS WEIGHT. 89 



and should several be captured, the restlessness of the 

 remainder is on the increase. If only a single one remains, 

 he rushes to and fro with anxious rapidity, until he himself 

 becomes a prisoner." 



With us in the Gotha, the salmon spawned at the end 

 of October or beginning of November; for when captured 

 with the rod in the early part of the former month and 

 I never fished later the roe appeared mature, and the 

 milt of the male was fluid. Nilsson, in corroboration, 

 also names October; but according to Danish authorities, 

 the lek of this fish in Jutland occurs at a much later period, 

 even so late as the month of February, or beginning of 

 March. 



The Scandinavian salmon attains to a large size, but I 

 never heard of any captured in the peninsula at all com- 

 parable to Mr. Grove's famous fish, which he himself told 

 me weighed eighty-three pounds.* With us in the Gotha 

 it was said to be sometimes taken of from fifty to sixty 

 pounds in weight ; and this I can well believe, from the 

 monsters more resembling porpoises than anything else 

 that I myself have occasionally seen in the pools below 

 Trollhattan. Nilsson speaks of seventy pounds (Swedish 

 weight, be it remembered, which is six per cent less than 

 the English) as the maximum of this fish; but I doubt if 

 the capture of so large a one is on record. 



Before concluding my observations on the salmon, it may 

 be proper to remark, that when in the " Northern Sports " 

 I spoke of the S. Salar as an inhabitant of the Wenern and 



* For the information of M. Kroyer, no other than avoirdupois weight is 

 used for common purposes in England. Troy weight is confined to chemistry, 

 gems, and the precious metals. 



