264 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



I mean fish which have spawned under natural and favour- 

 able circumstances for the decrepitation is undoubtedly 

 due, in the latter case, not to the act of spawning, but to the 

 condition of the fish after spawning, and would be equally 

 noticeable on a fish whose ova had been passed under less 

 favourable circumstances. 



When discussing the question with Mr. C. Tate Regan, M.A., 

 of the British Museum, Cromwell Road,* he pointed out that 

 my theories led to an issue which precluded any definite 

 knowledge being arrived at from scale records as to whether 

 a salmon had ever legitimately spawned, and therefore 

 it might be argued that a fish had never spawned. I had to 

 acknowledge that this was exactly the point at which 

 I had arrived, and that I considered that the scale markings 

 only prove that the salmon has left salt water and has 

 developed and discharged its ova, and were it not for the 

 fact that we see salmon spawning, the scales would do 

 nothing more than confirm the opinion that the salmon had 

 in some manner vented its spawn ; thus leaving us unable 

 without further proof of this fact to determine the 

 difference between a salmon that has achieved its life's 

 purpose, and one which has failed to do so ; and until this 

 point is settled, the lately developed school of research on 

 scale marking is unfortunately prevented from basing its 

 deductions on an exact science. 



A migratory bird, whose eggs or young brood are 

 destroyed, may nest and breed again the same year, but if 

 the bird has once successfully reared its young, it has not 

 been proved to have nested again during the same season. 

 Salmon are a much lower order in the ranks of the migratory 

 vertebrates, and their life's duties probably cease when they 

 have deposited their eggs in the act of spawning. If 

 prevented from carrying out this duty, they may be 



* Author of British Fresh Water Fish. 



