i84 



BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



appearance, but in the habits of these fish. At first they carried 

 red spots like their English ancestors, but these now disappear 

 after the yearling stage, and the fish are as silvery as salmon, 

 with the x-shaped black spots so characteristic of the migratory 

 species. And in Tasmania these descendants of English brook 

 trout have thoroughly acquired the sea-going habit. Large 

 trout are only to be found in the river Leith during the winter 

 months ; the rest of the year they spend in the sea or the 

 estuary, where they are taken of large size in nets. Does not 

 this seem as if the salmonoid history of tertiary and post-tertiary 

 rivers were repeating itself under our very eyes } 



Sub-Genus— SALMONES 



The Salmon {Salmo salar) 



Fins. 

 First dorsal : 14 rays. 

 Second dorsal : rayless, adipose. 

 Anal: 11 rays. 

 Pectoral : 14 rays. 

 Ventral : 9 rays. 



Teeth. 

 Conical teeth on both jaws, all 

 along the vomer and palatine 

 bones, and on the tongue, 

 none on the pteryoid bone 

 (at the back of the palate). 



Never was animal more fitly named from its habits than the 

 salmon — " the leaper " — from salire^ to leap ; for it cannot be 

 long in a river without betraying its presence by throwing itself 

 out of the water, falling back with far-resounding splash. 

 Truly, an adult salmon, fresh from the sea, is one of the most 

 perfectly beautiful of living creatures. Nor does it owe its 

 beauty to gorgeous colouring or complicated form ; but to 

 purity of silver mail, to subtle, yet simple, curvature of contour, 

 and to that concentrated grace which consists in the perfect 

 adaptation of every organ to a life of intense activity 

 and energy. 



But that applies only to the salmon in one of the numerous 

 phases through which it passes, not only within the span of 



