540 lllSTOKY OF 



Sofl-Jbined Abdominal Fish. 



39. The Loricaria. The body crusted over ; the head broad 

 with a beak ; no teeth ; the fin covering the gills with six rays. 



40. The Athenna or Alherine. The body oblong ; the head 

 of a middling size ; the lips indented ; the fin covering the gills 

 with six rays ; the line on the sides resembling a silver band. 



4j1. The Salmo or Salmon. The body oblong ; tbe head a 

 little sharp ; the fin covering the gills from four to ten rays; the 

 last fin on the back, without its correspondent muscles, fat. * 



* The Salmon. — The Salmon, which was known to the Romans, but not to 

 the Greeks, is a soft-finned abdominal fish. It is disting'uished from other 

 fish by having two dorsal fins, of whirh the hiuderraost is fleshy and with, 

 out rays : it has teeth both in the jaws and in the tongue ; and the body is 

 covered with round and minutely striated scales. The colour of the back 

 and sides is gfray, sometimes spotted with black, and sometimes plain ; the 

 covers of the gills are subject to the same variety ; and the belly is silvery. 

 The nose is sharp-pointed : and in the males the under jaw sometimes turns 

 >ip in the form of a hook. Rapid and stony rivers, where the water is free 

 from mud, are the favourite places of most of the salmon tribe, the whole of 

 which is supposed to afiord wholesome food for mankind. This fish seems 

 confined in a great measure to the northern seas, being unknown in the 

 Mediterranean, and in the waters of other climates. It lives in fresh, as 

 well as in salt waters, forcing itself in autumn up the rivers, sometimes for 

 hundreds of miles, for the purpose of depositing its spawn. It abandons the 

 seas where it finds an abundant sustenance, ascends the rivers depopulated 

 by man, endeavours by every kind of artifice to escape the snares of the 

 fishermen, and all this solely for the purpose of finding a convenient place -for 

 depositing its eggs. In these peregrinations it is that salmon are caught 

 in the great numbers that supply our markets and tables. Intent only on 

 the object of their journey, they spring up cataracts and other obstacles of 

 a very great height. This extraordinary power seems to be owing to a 

 sudden jerk that the fish gives to its body from a bent into a straight posi. 

 tion. When they are unexpectedly obstructed in their progress, it is said 

 they swim a few paces back, survey the object for some minutes, motion, 

 .ess, retreat, and return again to the charge; then, collecting all their force, 

 with one astonishing spring leap over every obstacle. Where the water is 

 low, or sand-banks intervene, they throw themselves on one side, and in 

 that position soon work themselves over into the deep water beyond. On 

 the river Liffy, in Ireland, there is a cataract above nineteen feet high ; 

 here, in the salmon season, many of the inhabitants amuse themselves in 

 observing the fish leap up the torrent. They frequently fall back many 

 times before they surmount it ; and baskets, made of twigs, are placed near 

 the edge of the stream to catch them in their fall. 



The Trout. — The general shape of the trout is rather long than broad : in 

 several of the Scotch and Irish rivers, they grow so much tliicker than those 

 in England, that a fish from eighteen to twenty-two inches will often weigh 



