46 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



A few days ago, a salmon of 69 Ibs. was sold in 

 London for 12 : 3s. 3d., being 550 times larger than 

 it was on its first migration to the sea. A question 

 may arise as to this fish's age. I have tried by vari- 

 ous means to ascertain the ages of salmon, but, thus 

 far, unsuccessfully. Probably at eight years of age, 

 it might be 20 Ibs., and since its birth it may have 

 made twenty migrations to the sea, and travelled 

 thousands of miles. This is one of the instances of 

 the growth of the salmon, and of the value of the fish 

 when full grown. 



Salmon, unlike our domestic animals, which have 

 to be carefully fed and sheltered for some years at a 

 great cost, requires no maternal care to rear or feed it, 

 but returns with the greatest regularity to its birth- 

 place. Those fish which are caught at Rotterdam, 

 and have travelled twenty times to the falls of the 

 Rhine, will have journeyed 14,000 miles in twenty 

 years ; and this vast distance we may suppose it 

 would accomplish with as much ease as a swallow 

 would fly the same space, since fish, by their specific 

 gravity, swim in the water as easily as birds fly in 

 the air. 



In short, the natural history and habits of the sal- 

 mon evince such marvellous instincts, that those who 

 practically study the subject for a lifetime appear to 

 know but little about it; its time of breeding, return 

 to arid from the sea, appear to be fixed with as great 

 precision as if they had been regulated by the dates 

 of an almanack. 



