68 Angling Travels in Norway. 



If a salmon were to attempt to gain subsistence solely 

 from the food which exists in a river he would wear 

 himself to skin and bone in the process ; but the same 

 exertion is not required in picking up fragments which 

 pass under his very nose as he rests upon the river-bed. 



The stomach of the salmon, with its ducts and exit, 

 becomes contracted by disuse when in the river, and the 

 small particles of food which he obtains merely perform 

 the office of keeping the machinery from absolute inaction. 



I have opened fish whose stomachs contained small 

 white worms, and in many others I have found the tape- 

 worm. From the proportions of a certain cock fish, I put 

 him down as a forty -pounder, but upon weighing him I 

 was astonished to find that he drew the scale at but thirty 

 pounds. I tried another steel-yard with the same reading. 

 His frame was certainly that of a fish nigh upon forty 

 pounds, but a further inspection showed him to be narrow. 



Upon opening him we discovered a large tape-worm, 

 and thus the mystery was revealed, for he had been 

 supporting a lodger. The existence of tape-worm in 

 salmon is far from uncommon in Norway. 



I have frequently found sea-lice upon fish which have 

 negotiated from thirty to forty miles of fjord, and beyond 

 that fifteen miles of river, but when captured at the 

 mouth of a river such a distance from the sea the para- 

 sites are not very numerous, nor arc they very firmly 



