THE BRITISH ANGLER'S LEXICON. 205 



with irregular dark copper- coloured spots on either side of 

 the lateral line. Salmon grow to a large size, having been 

 caught above eighty pounds weight. Fish weighing forty 

 and forty-five pounds are by no means rare, but the 

 average weight is twenty-five pounds. Salmon feed on 

 small fish, shell fish, molluscs, and insects, and not only 

 digest their food rapidly, but eject it so quickly when 

 caught either by rod or net, that on post m or tern "examination 

 their stomachs are always found empty. This fact has led 

 to the popular fallacy that salmon do not feed in the rivers. 

 The idea is absurd ; if they do not eat, why do they take 



THE SALMON. 



worm, minnow, prawn, shrimp, to say nothing of the natural 

 and artificial fly ? It may be noted here that the common 

 trout often ejects partly-digested food after it has been safe 

 in the landing net. The fry are hatched in the spring, the 

 parents having ascended the rivers the previous autumn 

 and deposited their spawn in suitable gravel furrows or 

 beds chosen out by themselves. The young make their 

 appearance in about twenty weeks, and are about five- 

 eighths of an inch long mostly head and eyes, the body 

 comparatively small. Attached to this latter is the yolk 

 sac, which nourishes the little creatures for five or six 

 weeks. At this period of their existence they are liable to be 



