78 SALMONIA. 



case if such changes took place. I hope, after 

 this explanation, Physicus will not find any 

 analogy between my ideas and those of a school 

 to which I am not ambitious of being thought 

 to belong ; and that he will allow my views to 

 be sound, or at least founded upon correct 

 analogies. 



POIET. Do you know any facts of a simi- 

 lar kind in confirmation of your idea that the 

 par is a mule ? 



HAL. I have heard of similar instances, 

 but I cannot say I have myself witnessed them. 

 The common carp and the cruscian are said to 

 produce a mixed race, and likewise the rudand 

 the roach ; but I have never paid much at- 

 tention to varieties of the carp kind. A friend 

 of mine informed me, that in a branch of the 

 Test, into which graylings had recently been 

 introduced, his fisherman caught a fish, which 

 appeared to be from a cross between the trout 

 and grayling, having the high back fin of the 

 grayling, and the head and spots of the trout : 

 this is the more remarkable, if correct, as the 

 grayling spawns in the late spring, and the 

 trout in the late autumn or winter : yet I do 



