174 * MIGRATION OF SALMON. 



river always return to it, and that none others 

 ever venture to do so ? 



Theoph. Perhaps not always ; for though 

 many have been marked and most have returned 

 to the same river ; yet some very few out of their 

 numbers have been taken in strange waters. Mr. 

 Yarrell mentions that fish marked in the Tweed 

 are taken in the Forth, and that a successful 

 season in the one is generally attended by a bad 

 one in the other. Here then is evidence of sal- 

 mon being found straying to a river, perhaps at 

 least one hundred miles from its original birth- 

 place. Whither salmon go, while out of the 

 fresh water, has never yet been determined ; it 

 is as yet a mystery. The probabilities are, that 

 they do not rove very far from the mouth of their 

 original river, though it was asserted by one wit- 

 ness examined before the House of Commons, 

 that they migrate to the North Seas : and the 

 fact of their never being taken at sea near our 

 salmon rivers, seems to favour this supposition. 

 The preponderance, however, of evidence taken 

 before the House of Commons since 1824, shows 

 that fry always return to rivers in which they 

 were spawned, those only which lose their 

 reckoning resorting to strange rivers, selecting the 

 nearest they can hit upon to suit their taste. 



Herb. But as to the growth of salmon, tell 

 me what you think ? because I remember having 



