10 DIFFICULT PROBLEMS. 



a delicious and highly-esteemed flesh, as much valued by 

 ancient as by modern epicures, and furnishing a staple 

 article of diet for many peoples ; habits of unusual inter- 

 est, and physiological phenomena which have suggested 

 problems to a hundred naturalists ; such is the fish of 

 fish, the lordly SALMON ! 



Though there is much that we do not know about the 

 natural history of the salmon, yet it is better known than 

 that of any other of the two hundred and fifty kinds of 

 fish which inhabit the seas and rivers of Britain ; and 

 this, as Mr. Bertram says, for three good reasons. It is 

 of greater value as property than any other fish ; its 

 large size better admits of observation than smaller mem- 

 bers of the fish tribe ; and, in consequence of its migratory 

 instinct, we have access to it at those seasons of its' life 

 when to observe its habits is the certain road to informa- 

 tion. Yet not a few of the difficulties connected with its 

 mode of reproduction and growth are by no means dis- 

 posed of. Almost every day some evidence is offered of 

 the unsettled state of our knowledge of these questions ; 

 and it may, we fear, be apprehended that they will hardly 

 be answered to the satisfaction of all inquirers and theor- 

 ists until some such course has been adopted as Mr. 

 Russel humorously suggests. If, he says, a deputation 

 of omniscient authors and witnesses could be induced to 

 stay below water for a few months, going down say in 

 November, taking their seat where they could observe 

 the deposition and development of the ova, " sitting," 

 like Milton's Sabrina, " under the glassy, cool, translucent 

 wave," accompanying their charge to the sea, and re- 

 turning to their native element in autumn, saturated 



