10 



SALMONID.E. 



Lovat, who are lords of the manor, used to show their guests, 

 was a voluntarily cooked Salmon at the falls of Kilmorac. 

 For this purpose a kettle was placed upon the flat rock on 

 the south side of the fall, close by the edge of the water, 

 and kept full and boiling. There is a considerable extent of 

 the rock where tents were erected, and the whole was under 

 a canopy of overshadowing trees. There the company are 

 said to have waited until a Salmon fell into the kettle and 

 was boiled in their presence. We have seen as many as 

 eighty taken in a pool lower down the river at one haul of 

 the seine, and one of the number weighed more than sixty 

 pounds." 



The fish having at length gained the upper and shallow 

 pools of the river, preparatory to the important operation of 

 depositing the spawn in the gravelly beds, its colour will 

 be found to have undergone considerable alteration during 

 the residence in fresh water. The male becomes marked on 

 the cheeks with orange-coloured stripes, which give it the 

 appearance of the cheek of a Labrus ; the lower jaw elon- 

 gates, and a cartilaginous projection turns upwards from the 

 point, which, when the jaws are closed, occupies a deep 

 cavity between the intermaxillary bones of the upper jaw ; 

 the body partakes of the golden orange tinge, and the 

 Salmon in this state is called a red-fish. The females 

 are dark in colour, and are as commonly called black-fish ; 

 and by these terms both are designated in those local and 

 precautionary regulations intended for the protection and 

 preservation of the breeding fish. 



The process of spawning has been described by various 

 observers. " A pair of fish are seen to make a furrow, by 

 working up the gravel with their noses, rather against the 

 stream, as a Salmon cannot work with his head down stream, 

 for the water then going into his gills the wrong way, drowns 



