RECENT RESEARCH UPON SALMON 229 



seen kelts in pursuit of salmon fry ; and they could not pursue 

 them without being seen, inasmuch as fry and parr remain 

 constantly in the shallows, and kelts must be looked for in the 

 deep, slow parts of a river. In the second place, in 1880, six 

 years before Professor Seeley's book was published, Professor 

 Miescher Ruesch had contributed to the literature of the Berlin 

 Fisheries Exhibition a report upon his prolonged experiments 

 and observation upon the salmon of the Rhine. 



He stated that in a series of nearly 2,000 salmon taken 

 and examined in the upper waters of that river, he found 

 evidence of feeding in the stomachs of two only^ both of 

 them male kelts. In the stomach of one of these were 

 the scales of a cyprinoid fish (dace, roach, or minnow), 

 and in that of the other was an acid secretion showing 

 that digestion had been going on. He described the 

 stomachs and gullets of salmon taken at Basel, 500 

 miles up the Rhine, as being contracted, wrinkled, and 

 folded, in strong contrast with the distended stomachs and 

 gullets of salmon taken at sea, whence he drew the conclusion 

 that " the Rhine salmon from its ascent from the sea to its 

 spawning, and also after this^ as a rule takes no nourishment." 

 Now, that Professor Seeley, who describes himself on 

 his title-page as foreign correspondent of certain scientific 

 bodies in Europe and America, should have ignored or failed 

 to acquaint himself with the result of Professor Miescher 

 Ruesch's observations, is a striking illustration of the loose 

 way in which salmon problems have been handled in the 

 past. Professor Seeley, disregarding, or ignorant of, the only 

 direct evidence upon the feeding of kelt salmon, has repeated 

 the mischievous and baseless charge of cannibalism made 

 against them by people who cannot be made to under- 

 stand the nature of scientific evidence. The whole 

 hypothesis rests upon the esurient, emaciated aspect of the 

 kelt, and his presence in the same river with thousands of 

 edible little members of his own species — surely not firm 



