SALMON 9 



it not been for the skill and diligence of Mr. Shaw, 

 who has demonstrated this their mistake by a series 

 of scientific and interesting experiments, they would 

 still have continued in error. But not naturalists 

 alone, who are apt to copy their predecessors with 

 somewhat too liberal a faith, but even practical men, 

 who have made their observations from nature, 

 have arrived also at false conclusions. 



Mr. Yarrell, in the second edition of his beautiful 

 work on British Fishes, has given so ample and so 

 scientific an account of the Salmon, deduced from 

 the late recent and important discoveries, that little 

 remains to be said on its natural history.* 



I shall therefore be as brief on this subject as 

 possible ; adding, however, such remarks on the 

 habits of the three most valuable species of the 

 SalmonidcB as my practical acquaintance with the 

 subject may enable me to supply. 



And, first, for the 



COMMON SALMON 



GENERIC CHARACTERS. " Head smooth, body 

 covered with scales ; two dorsal fins, the first sup- 

 ported by rays, the second fleshy and without rays ; 

 teeth on the vomer, both palatine bones, and all the 



* British and Irish Salmonidce, by John Day, 1887, British Fresh 

 Water Fishes, by C. Tate Regan, 1911, The Life of the Salmon, by 

 W. L. Calderwood, 1907, The Life History and Habits of the Salmon, 

 etc., by P. D. Malloch, 1910, The Sea Trout, by H. Lamond, 1916, are 

 other books which have more lately become indispensable to the 

 student of the Salmonidoe. There is much also in the literature of 

 the Scottish Fishery Board which should be acquired. (ED.) 



