42 FISHES AND FISHING. 



care ; and again, there are a few species which are 

 attracted by and follow promiscuously any of the 

 females to their own ruin. Fishermen of that period, 

 sixteen hundred and fifty-two years ago, . understood 

 these propensities of fish, how to take advantage of 

 their passions, and to thereby entrap them. The 

 above author devoted nearly half the first book, and 

 almost all of the fourth of his Halieuticks, to the most 

 curious description of the loves of the fishes, whose 

 desires, he asserts, are more ardent than those of ter- 

 restrial animals. 



Francis "Willoughby, who wrote in 1686 a most 

 elaborate folio work in Latin, giving an account of 

 all fishes then known, with plates of them, mentions 

 a species of salmon, denominated by him '' salmo 

 griscus,^' or the grey; this fish was then scarce, and 

 was considered so much more delicate than the sal- 

 mon, as to command more than double the price. 

 Another author, who wrote above a hundred years 

 ago, describes this fish as being equal to the salmon 

 in magnitude, but very unlike in shape, being con- 

 siderably broader and thicker, the tail as large, but 

 not forked, the body stained everywhere with grey or 

 ash-coloured spots, whence he supposes it takes its 

 name. He confirms Willoughby as to the superior 

 excellence of this fish, and the consequent price it 

 obtains ; he says they enter the rivers from the sea 



