ABDOMINAL MALACOPTERYGII. 143 



market alone, during six days, (not selected as being 

 unusually productive,) viz. 253 boxes. 



Sooner or later in the spring, according to the 

 season and the locality, the Salmon, which have spent 

 some months in the ocean, begin to throng the 

 mouths of the rivers. They remain a few days in 

 the mingled salt and fresh water, before they pro- 

 ceed, when having become seasoned, they ascend 

 the streams. 



As the summer advances, they proceed higher and 

 higher, and become more swollen with roe, and con- 

 sequently out of season. We have mentioned the 

 perseverance with which they surmount obstacles, in 

 their progress to the spawning place : " they shoot 

 up rapids with the velocity of arrows, and make won- 

 derful efforts to surmount cascades and other impedi- 

 ments by leaping, frequently clearing an elevation 

 of eight or ten feet, and, gaining the water above, 

 pursue their course. If they fail in their attempt 

 and fall back into the stream, it is only to remain a 

 short time quiescent, and thus recruit their strength 

 to enable them to make new efforts."* Mr. Mudie 

 has described some of these feats which he has wit- 

 nessed at the Fall of Kilmorac, in Inverness-shire. 

 ' The pool below this fall is very large ; and, as it 

 is the head of the run in one of the finest Salmon 

 rivers in the North, and only a few miles distant from 

 the sea, it is literally thronged with Salmon, which 

 are continually attempting to pass the fall, but, 

 without success, as the limit of their perpendicular 

 * Yarrell, Br. Fish, vol. ii. p. 8. 



