90 THE HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE SALMON. 



tributed in due proportion. In the wonted season, all the 

 fish spawned, each in its respective river. Now mark one 

 of the consequences of this experiment. Salmon at pre- 

 sent and ever since come regularly to spawn, traversing 

 the lake to do so, in all these heretofore salmonless rivers. 

 Nay more, the fish hatched in the Terry at least those 

 who survive long enough return to the Terry, and the 

 produce of the other three rivers return to them ; each 

 grilse or salmon enters never failingly the stream that 

 gave it birth. What wonderful and unerring instinct ! 

 One would think that they would remain in the River 

 Shin, and spawn where their first ancestors had spawned : 

 but no; leaving their own natal shallows, they pass down the 

 lake, through the River Shin, along the Kyle of Sutherland 

 to the sea ; and then having become adolescent, they re- 

 trace their route, and after necessary rests on their long 

 voyage, very frequently on the spots of their fathers' 

 nativity, they revisit for the first time the scenes of their 

 birth and infancy. Revisit them for what? Being nubile 

 to perform the nuptial rites which they do where their 

 forefathers begot them, and so they go on increasing and 

 multiplying in colonies heretofore tenantless of salmon, 

 even ever since volcanic action called from the ' vasty 

 deep the mountains and rivers of Northern Caledonia/ 



f( I shall now conclude this paper with a description of 

 the immediate spawning operations of the salmon. The 

 spawning bed, which may be called a continuation of 

 nests, is never fashioned transversely or across the water's 

 current, but straightly against it. The way the bed is 

 formed has never before been accurately described. Some 

 have affirmed the male fish to be the sole architect ; others 

 that the female does all the constructive work ; others 

 again, that the tail is the only delving implement em- 

 ployed; and others write that the bed-trenches are dug across 

 the stream. These people they must pardon my telling 

 them so are feather-bed naturalists. 1 have already 

 shown the direction of the beds ; it corresponds with the 

 run of the river. A salmon bed is constructed thus : The 

 fish having paired and chosen the ground for bed-making, 

 and being ready to lie in, then drop down the stream a 

 little, and then returning with velocity towards the spot 



