AND ANGLING SONGS. 3QI 



excepted, which has taken place within the last quarter of a 

 century, besides the greater efficiency of the county police, may 

 be taken into consideration the immense addition which has 

 been made to the coverts and plantations throughout the district, 

 and the fortifying against acts of trespass the parks and policy- 

 grounds of the large landed proprietors with high walls in lieu 

 of low dykes and hedges, which, besides offering temptations 

 and facilities for intrusion, gave harbour to weasels and other 

 vermin. At the same time, as one of the undoubted causes of 

 this increase, a large amount of credit, I consider, is due to the 

 better feeling towards animals, birds especially, which prevails 

 among the juveniles of the present day. 



Mr. Alexander Russel's admirable book of The Salmon has 

 made it quite superfluous for me, in these rambling sketches, to 

 do more than enter into some minor points connected with the 

 natural history of this fish which he has not taken up. That 

 there is still left a large field of interesting inquiry in connexion 

 with the solar and its congeners there can be no doubt. The 

 parr life, so to call it, of the orange-fin smolt ; the singular pro- 

 vision in the shape of ripe milt, with which the male parrs of 

 the salmon proper are furnished in the months of November and 

 December, or at the commencement of the spawning season, no 

 corresponding forwardness of the roe-leaf being exhibited in the 

 female parrs ; the numerical superiority of the males of the 

 young salmon when in the parr stage ; the mysteries which 

 attend the pairing of salmon, and their ' redding' operations ; 

 the object which the spring fish have in view in ascending our 

 rivers ; the possible production of mules or crosses among the 

 different species belonging to the genus Salmo ; the prevalence 

 of the eriox in connexion with Tweed and Coquet, and its com- 

 parative paucity as a visitor in our northern rivers, all these, 

 and many others, are subjects open to investigation, and upon 

 which it is desirable additional light should be thrown. 



