46 SPECIES OF THE SALMON. 



upon this, as has been energetically said upon ano- 

 ther more serious subject, " He that will not believe 

 Moses and the Prophets, would not believe though 

 one were to rise from the dead." This then closes 

 the affirmative evidence ; now let us examine with 

 candour what the reasons of those are who main- 

 tain a contrary opinion, namely, that they are three 

 distinct species. 



As to the salmon-peal, as far as I can collect, 

 the advocates for the opinion that this fish is a 

 species of itself, have three arguments ; the first 

 is, that many of the peal have roe ; secondly, that 

 they have teeth in the roof of the mouth, which 

 the salmon have not ; and thirdly, that they never 

 grow after they enter the rivers. 



In answer to the first, I admit the fact, though 

 it is not general; and if some of the female peal 

 have roe, I have never heard or met with an in- 

 stance of a milt being seen in the male. But I 

 think this is a circumstance which amounts to 

 nothing towards evidence of a distinct species, 

 because it is plainly an inceptive ovaria of a limited 

 and very puny nature, not calculated for being 

 shed in a state of maturity but at a very remote fu- 

 ture time. Besides, who knows at what period of life 

 these ovaria were first formed, and placed in the 

 body of the fish? perhaps coevally with its very exist- 

 ence, though not discernible but by a glass. Now it 

 is known that fish begin to breed at an eighth part 

 of their size : a small trout, not larger than a fin- 

 ger, has roe, and so has one as large as a man's 



