SLENDER SALMON. 217 



with your letter, and kind remembrance of me. I have a skin 

 of a Salmon that would have been a good match for your 

 female. This was a Salmon that had been detained in a fresh- 

 water pond rather more than three years, and he had in that 

 time become in form more like an eel than a Salmon. I have 

 also in my drawer a specimen of a Salmo Trutto almost as 

 much elongated, but I had no opportunity of ascertaining any 

 cause for this change, but probably, as in the case of your 

 fish, destined to live in a river, the water of which did not 

 suit it." 



It is not generally safe to differ in opinion from that excellent 

 naturalist, and especially in reference to fish of fresh water ; 

 but on the present occasion it should be remarked that the 

 known circumstances were very different from those that were 

 thus suggested. So far from having suffered from long confine- 

 ment, the effect of which on the true Salmon is highly 

 suggestive, this example was caught when it had just then 

 come from the open sea. The Kiver Fowey also is not polluted 

 with poisonous water from mines, as are many other streams in 

 Cornwall; and further, at no great distance of time before this 

 a specimen distinguished by similar characters, presently to be 

 described, was taken in the Looe, under the same circumstances; 

 and it should be further observed that at that time the last- 

 named river had not suffered from the copper and mundic water 

 which now flows into it. As regards the rarity of this fish, 

 with us of the west it does not appear to be less common than 

 the Salmon Trout itself; and on Dr. Fleming's authority I do 

 not hesitate to say, that however thinly scattered, it has been 

 met with more than once at the two extremities of the united 

 kingdom. 



The length of this fish was two feet four inches and a quarter; 

 from the snout to the border of the gill-covers (all measured 

 in a straight line) five inches; girth round the body, which 

 was little compressed, and nearly round, one foot one inch and 

 a quarter. Teeth in the upper jaw and mystache strong, 

 scattered, and incurved; a row round the palate, incurved towards 

 the palate; none in the vomer, nor did it appear there had 

 ever been any. The colour dull, with a tendency to blue, and 

 a tinge of pink along the sides. Rather numerous blackish 

 spots, with radii in three or four rays, and no light border 



VOL. IV. 2 F 



