SPECIES OF THE SALMON. 35 



goes to the sea. The smelt in May is from four 

 to five and six inches long; it goes to the salt 

 water as soon as it is able. In July and Au- 

 gust a fish exactly resembling it, and called in 

 Devonshire a salmon-peal, comes into the fresh- 

 water rivers ; it is supposed by some to pro- 

 ceed from the pea of the salmon, called in the 

 north whitings, and by different names at dif- 

 ferent places. There is not, except in size, the 

 slightest distinction in shape, fin, branchia, rays, or 

 colour between this and the smelt. These fish re- 

 main with us about two months or six weeks, and 

 when the rivers in the month of May swarmed 

 with smelts they were very numerous ; but until 

 the present year they have been in the Dart ex- 

 tremely scarce, diminishing as the salmon dimin- 

 ished; they weigh on the average about half 

 a pound, some less and others more. They dis- 

 appear from the rivers about the latter end of 

 August and beginning of September. There is a 

 very great difference in their colour, which is the 

 criterion of their goodness ; some are very red, 

 others pale ; the red are considered as the best for 

 the table, and the more they incline to a pale colour 

 the worse they are, becoming at length absolutely 

 uneatable. This difference of goodness and of colour 

 I attribute to the length of time they have been 

 from the salt water, for they have also, like the 

 common salmon, the lerncea salrtionea, when fresh 

 from the sea. The probability, indeed I may say 

 the certainty, is, that these fish return again to the 



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