i86 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



feed until it has learnt to look out for itself, a period 

 of from six to eight weeks. Frank Buckland has 

 stated that no other animal increases so rapidly at 

 so little cost, and becomes such a valuable article of 

 food as the salmon. At three days old it is nearly 

 two grains in weight; at sixteen months it has 

 increased to two ounces, or four hundred and eighty 

 times its first weight; at twenty months old, after 

 the smolt has been a few months in the sea, it 

 becomes a grilse of eight and a half pounds, having 

 increased sixty-eight times in three or four months; 

 at two and three-quarter years old it becomes a 

 salmon of twelve pounds to fifteen pounds; after 

 this its increased rate of growth has not been 

 satisfactorily ascertained, but by the time it becomes 

 thirty pounds it has increased one hundred and 

 fifteen thousand two hundred times the weight it 

 was at first. 



The only parts of a young salmon or trout which 

 is fully developed immediately it leaves the egg are 

 its eyes. These are golden with a silver sheen, and 

 beautifully bright the great aids in steering clear 

 of an almost innumerable set of enemies which this 

 new stage of existence brings. And it is really diffi- 

 cult to say whether these game fishes have more 

 enemies when in the egg or after they are hatched. 

 Of some of the former we have already spoken, and 

 now let us look to the latter. 



