28 THE NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS 



ness of their provision bag, for they have from this 

 bag their sole support for the first five weeks of their 

 existence. Many would suppose that at this time 

 their destruction from other fishes would be immense ; 

 but they remain in comparative safety, for they are 

 born with that sagacity or fear, that a wave of the 

 hand or any other movement will cause them to 

 disappear in among the stones, with the same quick- 

 ness that midges do from a gust of wind. 



The original opinion among naturalists and others 

 that studied the nature and habits of the fish in other 

 respects pretty correctly, was, that these young fish 

 that were hatched in spring were the smolts and 

 grilses of that season. In one respect they were 

 right, for the smolts they saw going down in the 

 spring actually were the grilses that come up in 

 summer, but they had not the remotest idea that the 

 smolts they saw were the fry of the previous year ; 

 they entirely lost sight of them for a whole year, and 

 though some watched the spawning beds, and saw some 

 of the fry burst the shell, they could trace them no 

 farther, for now they had disappeared among the 

 stones and gravel of the river, and no more of them 

 was looked for until, as they thought, they saw them 

 as smolts a month after ; these had been marked and 

 got grilses the same summer. Although a num- 

 ber of sceptics always existed, some sound sense 

 could be gathered from the accounts of the progress 

 of the fish after the smolt state, but to take the his- 

 tory of the fish in whole it was a sad mixture. 



The salmon fry were seen in the rivers even more 

 numerous than they are now, for in those days sal- 

 mon were treated with more respect and justice ; but 

 these fry were then confounded with a small trout 

 found in all rivers, even where salmon or salmon 

 fry could never have access, as well as in rivers 



