122 THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



to be descended from a marine ancestry, for, like its ocean 

 relatives, its air-bladder is destitute of ossicles connecting 

 it with the internal ear. Reliable evidence confirmatory 

 or the reverse of this view, or whether marine residents 

 among the Gadidae may be detected living in fresh waters, 

 thus becomes desirable. For should a migration from 

 the sea to fresh waters be undertaken without occasioning 

 deleterious results, it would tend towards confirming the 

 possibility of the correctness of the foregoing deduction. 



In Midgulen Lake, 61 43' N. Lat, and 5 15' E. 

 Long, from Greenwich, pollack have been found living 

 in the fresh water. This lake is about 500 yards from 

 the sea, with which it is connected by a river averaging 

 about 20 yards in width by 3 feet in depth. There are 

 no falls, but three or four rapids, which at high water 

 are (as regards those nearest the sea) submerged, the upper 

 ones being but slightly affected. A small boat could 

 perhaps row from the sea into the lake under favourable 

 circumstances, while the strength of the current could not 

 prevent a fish of the weakest sort from entering the lake ; at 

 the same time no sea-water can get in the more so that the 

 head of the Fjord itself is fresh on the surface. This lake 

 is about one and a half miles in length, its depth unknown ; 

 it is fed by the snow melting on the hills far and near, 

 while its water is perfectly and entirely fresh. Here reside 

 the usually marine pollack. On the south side of the Sogne 

 Fjord, about thirty or forty miles from the sea, is a Fjord 

 called Fuglescet, a small branch of which is the Sorejde 

 Fjord. Here a small river, about one hundred yards long, 

 flows from the lake to the sea, which, though rapid at low 

 water, is nearly checked at high water. Still the fresh 

 water always pushes out. This lake is two miles long, and 

 fed by two snow streams. Here cod, coal-fish, and pollack 



