76 LIFE AND HISTORY OF A SALMON. 



From Mr Shaw's admirable memoir " On the Growth-, 

 and Migration of the Sea-Trout of the Solway," * we 

 learn that, at the age of twenty-four months, three- 

 fourths of the brood of that fish assumed the migratory 

 dress, and that this was not assumed by the remaining 

 fourth, which he maintains do not migrate, .but per- 

 manently reside in the river; the females maturing 

 their roe sufficiently to reproduce their species with 

 young males of corresponding age. A writer in * The 

 Edinburgh Keview ' (July 1843), having referred to the 

 sea-trout permanently resident in the island of Lismore, 

 Argyleshire, thus proceeds : " We venture to state that 

 this same power of adaptation to fresh water is pos- 

 sessed by the salmon ; " and having referred to Lloyd's 

 1 Field-Sports in the North of Europe,' to prove that the 

 21,817 salmon caught in Lake Wenern in 1820, of the 

 average weight of six or seven pounds, but never above 

 twenty, "could never have been in the sea/' the reviewer 

 proceeds : " It is probable, indeed and we beg to call 

 Mr Shaw's attention to the probability that a certain 

 portion of the salmon-brood may, like the sea-trout, 

 remain permanently in our rivers." 



It remains to be proved that these so-called salmon 

 in Lake Wenern are true salmon. The probability sug- 

 gested may, by the experiment at Storm oritfield, turn 

 out to be a reality; and in that event, the question 

 will arise whether the non-migration of the fish there 

 reared be natural to the species, or the result of the 

 circumstances in which they have been placed. It is 

 conceivable that a young salmon, regularly fed, may 

 have its craving for food so abundantly gratified as not 

 to feel the instinctive longing which impels its unpam- 

 pered congeners to make for the feeding-grounds of the 

 ocean. Such a result may have important consequences. 

 If fishes, naturally migratory, can be so treated as to 

 convert them into permanent dwellers in our lakes and 



* ' Transactions of Eoyal Society of Edinburgh/ vol. xv. part iii. 

 p. 369. 



