OF THE SALMON. 71 



dropped ; and from a certain attraction that the ova 

 has, the trout are led to the very hole where the ova 

 is lying : they are often prevented and fail in their 

 attempts, for the fish seem to be always on the alert 

 for them ; but yet they often succeed, and when they 

 get within sight or reach of an ovum, they will be 

 seen darting at it with the agility they do at a fly, run 

 off with it, and soon return again to the same spot 

 to watch the next opportunity, and only leave it 

 reluctantly when driven away by the salmon. This 

 we see over all the spawning fords, the salmon eager 

 to come up and protect their seed, and the trout 

 as keen and eager to devour it. I have caught num- 

 bers of these trout during the spawning time, but 

 never found one of them but what was full of the 

 ova ; some, when opened, had upwards of fourscore of 

 grains, and the whole of them had less or more ; 

 therefore, in course of the whole season, the destruc- 

 tion of ova must be immense. And yet their destruc- 

 tion does not stop here, for as soon as the ova is 

 all covered up, they attack the fry in the river, and 

 continue to feed on them until they leave for the sea. 

 As an experiment, I at one time put into a pond 

 along with a trout of half a pound weight a dozen 

 of very fine smolts of fully five inches long, at the 

 time they were leaving the rivers. This was done 

 in the evening, and when I examined the pond next 

 morning, the trout had eaten up the whole dozen, and 

 might perhaps have doubled that quantity : however, 

 seeing what was done, I did not feel inclined to try 

 afterwards what the exact number that could be eaten 

 in one night might be, for what was done was a 

 specimen of the destruction done in a salmon river 

 in the course of a year, and be an inducement to 

 destroy as many of them as possible. But owing 

 to their prolific nature, we cannot expect to get en- 

 F 4 



