NINTH DAY.] SALMO HUCHO. 229 



caught several in April, in streams connected with the 

 Save and Laybach rivers, which had evidently come 

 from the still dead water into the clear running streams, 

 for they had the winter leech, or louse of the trout, 

 upon them : and I have seen them of all sizes, in 

 April, in the market at Laybach, from six inches to 

 two feet long ; but they are found much larger, and 

 reach 30, or even 40, pounds. It is the opinion of 

 some naturalists, that it is only a fresh water fish ; yet 

 this I doubt, because it is never found beyond certain 

 falls as in the Traun, the Drave, and the Save ; and, 

 there can be no doubt, comes into these rivers from 

 the Danube; and probably, in its largest state, is a 

 fish of the Black Sea."* Yet it can winter in fresh 

 water ; and does not seem, like the salmon, obliged to 

 haunt the sea, but falls back into the warmer waters 

 of the great rivers, from which it migrates in spring, 

 to seek a cooler temperature and to breed. The 

 fishermen at Gratz say they spawn in the Mur, between 

 March and May. In those I have caught at Laybach, 

 which, however, were small ones, the ova were not 

 sufficiently developed to admit of their spawning that 



[* During a residence of nine months in Constantinople, often visiting 

 the fish-market in person, and making inquiry of persons most likely to 

 give accurate information, I could not learn that the hucho had ever 

 yeen seen there, leading to the inference that it is unknown in the 

 Black Sea, from whence the Turkish capital is in part supplied with 

 fish. J. D.J 



