OF THE SALMON.' 45 



Section V. 



" To instruct my readers as much as possible, I 

 shall add several observations on the formation of 

 these young trout. After the egg has been fructuated 

 by the sperma of the male, which slips through an 

 invisible opening into it, it lodges in the white liquor 

 under the shell and round the yolk, which last is 

 liquid and transparent, tending to a yellowish colour, 

 and seems to fill up the greater space of the egg, 

 except the little white round it. So soon as this little 

 animalcula has assumed the nature and form of the 

 fish, it appeareth that the yolk of the egg is separated 

 by a very thin skin from the outward hard membrane. 

 The fish itself, except the eyes, is very transparent, 

 and as liquid as a little mucilaginous water, yet in 

 shape longish: it lies bent within the outward hard 

 membrane of the egg, and round the thin skin that 

 covers the yolk. From this time the fish is to be 

 considered as one body, to the yolk from the gills 

 downward to the outlet, which is in length about the 

 quarter part of the inward circumference of the egg. 

 This yolk, which looks like a bag, becomes the belly, 

 and without entrails. On this expanded belly, espe- 

 cially in the salmon trout, are plainly to be seen many 

 blood-vessels divided into smaller branches, and so 

 plain that the arteries may be distinguished from the 

 veins by the naked eye. And it is no wonder, for as 

 it has been mentioned that this hanging belly is larger 

 in proportion to the fish, so that the blood-vessels are 

 in proportion expanded, and are to be seen very 

 plainly so long as the fish remains in a state of 

 transparency in the water. If you open one of these 

 bags with a needle, a liquor runs out of a yellowish 

 colour, which is the nutriment of the fish ; then the 



