IMPRISONED SALMON 49 



and continue so when the period of spawning 

 approaches, most of the salmon will seek and 

 ascend some other river that may be contiguous to 

 it, whose volume of water is more abundant. Thus 

 many Tweed salmon have been caught in the Forth, 

 and a very successful fishing there is generally 

 followed by a scarce one in the Tweed. 



It appears that salmon will live, and even breed, 

 in fresh water, without ever making a visit to the 

 sea. Mr. Lloyd, in his interesting and entertaining 

 work on the Field Sports of the North of Europe, 

 says, " Near Katrinebergh there is a valuable fishery 

 for salmon, ten or twelve thousand of these fish 

 being taken annually. These salmon are bred in 

 a lake, and in consequence of cataracts cannot 

 have access to the sea. 1 They are small in size, 

 and inferior in flavour. The year 1820 furnished 

 21,817." 



Mr. George Dormer of Stone Mills, in the 

 parish of Bridport, put a female of the salmon 

 tribe, which measured twenty inches in length, and 

 was caught by him at his mill-dam, into a small 

 well, where it remained twelve years, and at length 

 died in the year 1842. The well measured only 

 5 feet by 2 feet 4 inches, and there was only 15 



1 This is the so-called land-locked salmon of Lake Wenern, and the 

 ouananiche of some American waters. They are specifically in- 

 distinguishable from Salmo saldr, but it is now generally admitted to 

 be a fallacy to consider them " land-locked. " No cataract could 

 prevent a fish descending to the sea, though it might bar his return. 

 The true ; explanation is that salmon are fresh-water fish, probably 

 descended from robust individuals of the trout species. They resort to 

 the sea for food which they cannot find in the rivers, but when they 

 can satisfy their appetites in vast and profound sheets of fresh water, 

 there is no object in going further. ED. 



E 



