BEFORE A COMMITTEE. 93 



witnesses having declared that salmon enter rivers to 

 get rid of sea-lice, and in search of food, Mr Mackenzie 

 thus proceeds " The doctor has discovered another 

 reason viz. terror. This is a new reason why salmon 

 enter rivers, which certainly has no connection with any 

 of what appear to be the principles of the migratory 

 system. The degree of terror in the Tay fish must be 

 very great, for many of them never stop till they reach 

 Loch Tay. We wonder how many degrees of terror 

 salmon experience, or how long they continue. We 

 always thought that the eye was the principal organ of 

 terror in a salmon, and that in this point the adage 

 1 out of sight out of mind ' might be applied to him ; 

 but the doctor makes the length of his residence in a 

 river to depend upon the strength of his memory. What 

 excellent memories, therefore, salmon must have ! for 

 Mr Stephen has furnished proof that, after they enter 

 rivers, they never leave them till they have spawned." 



Fortunately for the salmon, his sense of pain- does 

 not seem to be acute, and his memory cannot be reten- 

 tive, for salmon which broke away part of the angler's 

 tackle, and so escaped, have often been taken shortly 

 afterwards with the identical tackle in their jaws ; and 

 Mr Mackenzie declares that he knew a case in which a 

 salmon, having lost an eye on the hook, made use of 

 the remaining eye to rise at the same hook, by which 

 it was caught on the same day ! 



But the witness against whom our author directs the 

 main battery of his ridicule is a Mr Stevenson, who de- 

 poned with all gravity to this most gullible Committee 

 " The nearer salmon are got to salt water the finer 

 is their quality ; so much so, that any one versed in the 

 state of salmon, would at once be able to pick out from 

 five hundred head of fish those that had been more than 

 two or thre'e days in the river; indeed, I am not sure 

 that I could not distinguish the fish which had been 

 taken one mile from the sea ! " Now, a salmon will run 

 a mile in less than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. 



