THE SALMON 



199 



in taking the artificial fly and other baits, have brought them 

 into evil repute with riverside folk, who accuse them of devour- 

 ing the young of their own kind, and advocate the repeal of the 

 statutory provision for their protection. This would be dis- 

 astrous to the interest of the salmon-fisheries. A kelt is an 

 adult salmon, and when we try to calculate the odds against the 

 contents of any individual ovum reaching that stage of growth, 

 it is surely apparent that kelts are worth the most sedulous care, 

 unless it can be proved that they are the enemies of their own 

 race. Long and careful examination by scientific methods, con- 

 ducted simultaneously in Germany and Great Britain, has shown 

 that it is the rarest thing possible to find the remains of food in 

 the stomach or intestines of kelts, or, indeed, of salmon at any 

 stage of growth subsequent to the smolt, so long as they are in 

 fresh water. Moreover, trout, pike, and other predaceous fish 

 which inhabit our inland waters may easily be seen by observant 

 persons in pursuit of their prey. Who ever detected a kelt 

 salmon doing the like } If they devoured parr and smolts, 

 would they not frequent those parts of a river where the imma- 

 ture fish were to be found } They do not do so. Kelts, it is 

 well known, lie in deep pools, and may never be seen prowling 

 about the shallows where smolts and parr congregate. No ; 

 the assumption that kelts commit ravages upon young of their 

 own kind is a false inference from the hungry appearance of the 

 fish ; they must eat something, say their traducers, and in many 

 salmon rivers there is no food for them in the spring months 

 except a few small trout and multitudes of parr and smolts, 

 whence these incautious reasoners leap to the conclusion that 

 kelts Hve upon small trout and smolts. All the evidence on 

 this subject that will bear analysis points to this, that from the 

 moment a salmon enters a river it ceases to feed ; henceforth 

 the source of muscular energy and of supplies for the growing 

 genitalia exists in the enormous accumulation of fats and 

 proteids laid up in the muscular tissue during the marine 

 excursion. 



