CHAPTER II 



" So dainty salmons, chevins thunder-scared, 

 Feast-famous sturgeons, lampreys speckle-starr'd, 

 In the spring season the rough seas forsake, 

 And in the rivers thousand pleasures take." 



Du BARTAS. 



f "^HE three species of the genus Salmo 



which are to be found in the Tweed, and 



which afford most sport to the angler, 



are the common Salmon, or Salmo Solar ; 



the Grey, or Bull Trout, Salmo Eriox ; and the 



Salmon Trout, Salmo Trutta. The Salmo Fario 



also, or common Trout, is, or rather used to be, in 



great abundance there ; but of this latter species 



I do not mean to treat.* 



Although the salmon fisheries are of considerable 

 national importance, affording a great supply of 

 food and employment to thousands ; yet, sur- 

 prising as it may appear, the natural history and 

 habits of the fish itself have almost up to this time 

 been very imperfectly known. Indeed naturalists 

 have been altogether mistaken as to the appearance 

 of the fry, which at a certain growth they have 

 supposed to be a distinct species of fish ; and had 



* The modern scientific view is that S. eriox, the bull trout, and 

 S. trutta, the sea trout, are one and the same fish. It is fortified by 

 an inclination to regard the brown trout, 5. fario, as merely another 

 manifestation of a somewhat plastic species. For further observa- 

 tions on this point, cf. the Introduction. (D.) 



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