THE SALMON 9 



demonstrated this their mistake by a series of 

 scientific and interesting experiments, they would 

 still have continued in error. But not naturalists 

 alone, who are apt to copy their predecessors with 

 somewhat too liberal a faith, but even practical 

 men, who have made their observations from 

 nature, have arrived also at false conclusions. 



Mr. Yarrell, in the second edition of his beautiful 

 work on British Fishes, has given so ample and so 

 scientific an account of the salmon, deduced from 

 the late recent and important discoveries, that little 

 remains to be said on its natural history. 



I shall therefore be as brief on this subject as 

 possible ; adding, however, such remarks on the 

 habits of the three most valuable species of the 

 Salmonidce as my practical acquaintance with the 

 subject may enable me to supply. 



And, first, for the 



COMMON SALMON 



SALMO SALAR 



GENERIC CHARACTERS. "Head smooth, body 

 covered with scales ; two dorsal fins, the first 

 supported by rays, the second fleshy and without 

 rays ; teeth on the vomer, both palatine bones, and 

 all the maxillary bones ; branchiostegous rays, 

 varying in number, generally from ten to twelve, 

 but sometimes unequal on two sides of the head of 

 the same fish." Yarrell. 



This splendid fish leaves the sea, and comes up 

 the Tweed at every period of the year in greater or 



