THE LIFE OF THE SALMON 245 



While fishing Mr. George Beck's stretch of the Evanger 

 River, Norway, in 1899, Mr. Arthur Wellington Naylor 

 hooked a fresh-run 20-pound salmon forty miles from the 

 sea, and having no lice on it. The triangle of the lure 

 which he had been using was fixed in the upper and lower 

 jaw of the fish, completely closing its mouth. After the 

 fish was gaffed, the tail of a parr 4 inches long, half digested, 

 was seen protruding from its mouth. This happened in 

 July. This evidence is important. The parr had 

 apparently been swallowed, and the fact that no sea-lice 

 were on the salmon argued that the salmon had been some 

 days out of salt water. It is by no means an uncommon 

 thing for salmon to clear forty miles of the lower stretches 

 of a river with sea-lice on them. I have killed salmon 

 fifty miles from the sea having sea-lice on them. The 

 deduction which can be made from this fact is that this 

 particular salmon had been some little time in fresh water ; 

 that either during that time or after it left salt water it had 

 taken and kept in some part of its alimentary system a parr, 

 which when hooked it had endeavoured to disgorge ; 

 but, owing to the fact that its jaws were firmly held together 

 by the triangle, the parr when rejected from the thorax, 

 could not pass between them. This is an argument in 

 favour of the assumption that salmon do at times take 

 matter as food while in fresh water, and that this food has 

 the appearance of being partially digested, but not that it 

 enters their stomach. 



THE GASTRIC GLANDS OF SALMON 



Dr. J. Kingston Barton states definitely that the digestive 

 organs of salmon taken with rod and line, and examined 

 by himself, were " absolutely normal." This from such an 

 authority appears conclusive, in so far as the healthiness and 

 normality of such organs are concerned, but it does not of 



