FISHES. 585 



pounds. The herring-trout, never found in English rivers, and only 

 caught on our coast by herring-trawlers, is a special favourite : may 

 it not be the whitling of the French rivers ? In all other species 

 colour varies with locality, and cannot be accounted for. 



We have seen how rapidly the young salmon increase in size in 

 the sea. During this stage of existence the salmon, being a carni- 

 vorous fish, rapidly develops itself from the grilse to the adult state. 

 From a careful analysis made by Dr. Wilson Johnston, of the Bengal 

 army, it appears that there is no recorded instance of healthy salmon 

 partaking of herring or sand-lances ; the tape-worm and other con- 

 ditions of perverted appetite were found in all. Tape-worm is most 

 common in the hybrid Norwegian, and perhaps explains the reason 

 why Clupeadse are sometimes found in their stomachs. Should the 

 fish not be charged with spawn, it will shortly return to sport among 

 the dancing waves ; but if matured for breeding, at which period 

 the female shows a dirty brown hue, and the male a black, they 

 mate, choose a spot for the salmon nest, and there deposit myriads 

 of ova. The longer a salmon continues in the river the duller 

 their colour becomes ; their flavour is greatly depreciated ; so that 

 Izaak Walton's statement, that "the further they get from the 

 sea they be both fatter and better," is dead against our daily 

 experience. 



During the period of river residence salmon never feed. It avails 

 not to argue that fear acts as an emetic and empties the stomach ; 

 the incontestable fact remains that the entire gastro-intestinal tract 

 ab ore ad ano is in ninety-nine per cent, devoid of any trace of food. 

 Juvenile experience on the part of the fish, recurring as a phantasm, 

 causes them to snap at a shining artificial minnow or a gaudy fly, but 

 they never rise out of the water ; the bait must dip to them, and 

 when hooked they shake the intruder as a terrier does a rat. If salmon 

 never feed in fresh water, what is the rationale of their existing there ? 

 Well, the superabundant store of fat deposited in their areolar tissue 

 appears to furnish a material which is functionally homologous to 

 the fatty supply stored by the Asiatic and African doomba sheep, 

 which is drawn upon to sustain life-action, when neves, avalanches, or 

 a heavy snow-fall imprisons the crop of herbage. That continued 

 muscular exertion can be sustained without special fatigue on non- 

 nitrogenous diet, Fick and Wislicensus have proved by their recent 

 ascent of the Faulhorn : it is moreover notorious that the chamois 

 hunter and the Hindoo runner prefer fats and saccharoids. Is there 

 any show ot reason, then, why the salmon should not maintain its 

 fresh- water muscular tear and wear by a stock of non-nitrogenous fatty 

 T * 



