NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SALMONID&. 125 



This grouping commends itself not only by its simplicity 

 and convenience of classification, but also by such broadly 

 marked distinctions in regard to habits, localities, &c., as must 

 override distinctions founded upon mere technical differences. 



Of the silver or migratory division of Salmonida, the first 

 in place, in virtue both of its pre-eminent qualities as a 

 food fish and its precedence in the estimation of fishermen, 

 is the 



SALMON (Salmo salar). 



Until the middle of last century not much was known of 

 the natural history of the salmon. Of theory there was a 

 superabundance ; in fact it was rare to come across a salmon 

 fisher, to say nothing of a salmon 'legislator,' who had not 

 some pet hobby of his own on the subject, ready to be trotted 

 out on the parliamentary, or any other plain, at the smallest 

 provocation. 



Descending, however, from theory and speculation to 

 actual knowledge, the united lore of those most interested 

 in the salmon fisheries amounted to little beyond the bare 

 truism that the fish ascended the rivers to spawn during the 

 spring and summer spawned and descended again to the 

 sea within the following two or three months. This, I say, was 

 the state of our salmon knowledge some sixty years ago. 



But the two decades which followed witnessed a very 

 marked and important advance. 



The researches of ichthyologists and the elaborate experi- 

 ments conducted on a large scale by enterprising and scientific 

 men had thrown a flood of light upon the subject, converting 

 doubts into certainties, theories into practice, and generally 

 advancing our knowledge to a point which has been productive 

 of most important results in the management and resuscitation 

 of our exhausted fisheries. 



Amongst those to whose exertions in the practical, per- 



