202 ON THE BREEDING OF SALMON. 



tant discovery is on the eve of coming to light ; the 

 error ab initio has been detected, and it will require, 

 not time or assiduity merely, but caution, craft, and 

 resolution to unravel the threads of former speculation, 

 and re-blend them together, so as to attract and har- 

 monise. 



Seriously speaking, however, these experiments and 

 their results assist greatly to embarrass Mr. Shaw's own 

 views regarding the impregnation of the ova. I do 

 not mean to assert that there may not be occasions 

 when a fresh-water trout and whitling hold a breeding 

 connection, perhaps a bull-trout and salmon will, under 

 peculiar circumstances, form the same, still I think 

 there exist very powerful obstacles in the way of their 

 doing so; yet, granting they occasionally come together, 

 and that there are hybrids so termed to be found in 

 our salmon rivers, these, it must be allowed, are of very 

 unfrequent occurrence; whereas, were Mr. Shaw's views 

 on the popular theory of impregnation of the exuded ova 

 correct, they would, in such a river as Tweed, for in- 

 stance, where the fish mentioned crowd together pro- 

 miscuously in every pool and stream during the spawning 

 season, exceed to such a degree the pure and legitimate 

 breeds, as to throw these completely into the back- 

 ground. The escaped milt of the salmon could not 

 possibly avoid being brought into immediate contact 

 with the uninoculated ova of the trout and whitling, 

 whose spawning operations are in progress a short way 

 further down ; nor could the milt of the trout fail of 

 interfering with the unburied ova of the spawner, as 

 they roll onward along the channel of the stream. 



The views I have set forth in this chapter, touching 

 the breeding of the salmon, are, I am glad to discover, 

 held as probable, by many who have constant opportu- 



