48 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



tions, that salmon are not uniform in their habits. 

 Some come into the river many months before 

 they are in a spawning condition, and remain in it 

 till the time comes for depositing their spawn ; 

 getting worse in condition every day they are in 

 fresh water, and thus, as it should seem, doing 

 unnecessary penance all that time. Others, again, 

 remain in the sea, thriving all the while, and do 

 not enter the rivers till their spawn is nearly 

 matured. I have said above that I believe the 

 smolts singly, or in small quantities, are continually 

 falling down to the sea in nearly if not quite every 

 month of the year, according to their age ; but 

 that they congregate, and go there in vast shoals 

 in the beginning of the month of May. There 

 seems to be a corresponding habit as to the time 

 of their return ; for they come back at first in 

 small quantities, and periodically in the spring and 

 summer months, and in July they arrive in vast 

 quantities ; and this sudden abundance consists, 

 I think, of the fry that have assembled and gone 

 to sea the preceding May, whilst the others that 

 ascend at different periods are the smolts that go 

 down in the same manner. 



The accompanying lithograph represents a fry 

 in the state when the silver scales just begin to 

 appear, and soften the bars and spots, the inter- 

 mediate state between the summer parr and smolt. 



As to the belief that salmon return to the same 

 river in which they are bred, I hold it to be a well- 

 founded one. But I think it is not invariably the 

 case ; and that should their native river be too low 

 for their ascent, owing to an extraordinary drought, 



