GROWTH OF SALMON. 177 



sale salmon-fishing all their lives, many, evidently, 

 from their examination, acute observers ; and 

 they are, I think, unanimous in declaring their 

 opinions to be, that the growth of salmon is as 

 rapid as you just now intimated. No one will doubt 

 but that it is almost an insurmountable difficulty 

 to determine which is right, they, or Mr. Shaw, 

 from the utter impossibility of making, and there- 

 fore of arguing from, actual experiment : and we 

 know so little of the habits of fish, especially 

 migratory fish, that it is as difficult to reason by 

 analogy. With regard to Mr. Shaw's experi- 

 ment, we may reasonably doubt its sufficiency, 

 because the animal was not in its natural state 

 when confined in his small pools or ponds. As 

 Mr. Yarrell observes, Mr. Shaw had three ponds, 



1st 18 feet by 22 



2nd 18 feet by 25 



3rd 30 feet by 50. 



And Mr. Shaw himself admits that those fry in 

 the third, the largest, were one inch, which is 

 equal to one-fifth, larger than the others at six 

 months old : and what is thirty feet by fifty, 

 and " two feet deep," " supplied by a small 

 stream," and of "higher temperature," com- 

 pared with the length, breadth, depth, and 

 lower temperature of a noble salmon river, 

 bounding, and rolling, in freshness and majestic 



