60 LIFE AND HISTORY OF A SALMON. 



trying the experiment, and with the most encouraging 

 prospect of success, as we verily believed, when the 

 horse-hair in the water really did begin to move ! 



While philosophers have thus imposed for a time on 

 public credulity, the general ignorance regarding fishes 

 has been greatly maintained by the prejudices of fisher- 

 men, and the incapacity of so-called " practical men " 

 to observe accurately and reason justly on matters with 

 which they are conversant. From the report of a par- 

 liamentary committee we learn that a tacksman of very 

 extensive fishings actually mistook the tape-worm (a 

 mischievous parasite infesting certain portions of the 

 intestinal tube of the salmon) for the food of the salmon. 

 Another "practical man " declares that the digestion of 

 this fish is so rapid, that " fire or water could not con- 

 sume quicker/' 



Of the ability of a fishmonger to edify the public as 

 to the habits of the creatures which he is daily handling, 

 we lately fell in with an amusing instance. An ancient 

 dealer in fish, either a wag or an ignoramus, gravely 

 informed the writer of "A Morning Visit to Billings- 

 gate," recently published in 'The Leisure Hour,' a meri- 

 torious production of the London Tract Society, " that 

 salmon-fry are developed from the egg in forty-eight 

 hours, during which time the breeding-bed is anxiously 

 watched by the parent fish, which, immediately on the 

 appearance of their young, conduct them to the ocean 

 with the tenderest care ! " This, it seems, is the Lon- 

 don fishmonger's version of the now exploded notion 

 that salmon-fry become smolts in about there or four 

 weeks after birth, and migrate to the sea. 



It must be owned, however, that the difficulty attend- 

 ant on all ichthyological researches is increased, in the 

 case of the salmon, by its characteristic habit of annu- 

 ally migrating from its native river to the rich feeding- 

 grounds of the ocean. In writing the life of a salmon 

 we may almost be said to write two biographies ; so 

 different in habits and appearance is the salmon at sea 



