30 THE SEA-TROUT 



it still remains to be considered whether the trout was originally a fresh- 

 water or a salt-water species. 



The question which exercised the minds of the Sophists, namely, 

 whether eggs or birds were created first, seems to have been particularly 

 fatuous in respect that the answer — whatever it might be — held out 

 very little promise of practical utility. If our present question is a 

 degree less futile than the classical conundrum, it can, for us at the 

 moment, only be useful for such light as the inquiry may help to shed 

 upon the question whether the migratory sea-trout is distinct from, or 

 is of the same species, and even race, as the non-migratory trout. The 

 inquiry can hardly hope to solve the deeper problem raised by the 

 mysterious habits of the fish in migrating at all. Yet that problem is a 

 most attractive one, and Mr. Regan supports the view which he takes 

 of it thus : — 



" The Salmonidis" he writes, " are found in the Arctic and 

 temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and may be regarded 

 as marine fishes which are establishing themselves in fresh water " ; 

 and again, " Some writers look upon the Salmon and its relatives as 

 true fresh-water fishes which have acquired the habit of going to the 

 sea for food, and which return to their original home to spawn. Against 

 this it may be urged that whereas many marine fishes take to fresh water, 

 the reverse is a rare phenomenon." Now I do not propose to quarrel 

 with Mr. Regan over his view of this problem, which to me seems 

 immaterial, but I suggest that the word " rare " implies that the 

 phenomenon is not impossible, and it may be fairly argued, or arguable, 

 that the facts equally point to fresh water as the original habitat of the 

 Salmomdcc. In particular, the fact that in salt water the spawn of 

 salmon and trout cannot come to fruition seems to me to be pertinent, 

 for if one casts back in imagination to the time before the fish had 

 acquired its migratory habit, it is easier to suppose that the eggs then 

 too hatched in fresh water than that, from being able only to hatch in 



