156 SALMONIA. [SIXTH DAY. 



for instance, some caught in the Alness, in Hosshire, 

 which we saw in passing round the south coast of 

 Boss. These appear to me thicker and brighter fish, 

 and one that I measured was 30 inches long, and 17 

 in circumference. 



HAL. I think I have seen broader fish than even 

 those of this river ; but the salmon which you happen 

 to remember for comparison, belonged to a small 

 stream, which, I think, in general are thinner and 

 longer than those in great rivers ; and what I 

 mentioned on a former occasion with respect to trout 

 holds good likewise with regard to salmon ; each 

 river has a distinct kind. It is scarcely possible to 

 doubt, that the varieties of the salmon, which haunt 

 the sea, come to the same rivers to breed in which 

 they were born, or where they have spawned before.* 



[ * This is also the conviction of Mr. Young, the most 

 experienced of the experienced in matters relating to the salmon. 

 In his " Natural History of the Salmon," he gives a remarkable 

 instance in proof. " We know (he says) of five rivers which run into 

 the same estuary, and all and each of these rivers have their own 

 particular salmon, and the fish differ so much the one from the other, 

 that they are quite easily distinguished. The first river which falls 

 into the estuary of which we speak, has a race of well-shaped salmon, 

 whose average weight is about ten pounds ; the second river has a 

 strong, coarse scaled, rather long, but very hardy salmon, whose 

 average weight is about seventeen pounds ; the third river has a 

 middling shaped salmon, whose average weight is about nine pounds ; 

 the fourth river has long, ill-shaped salmon, averaging about eight 

 pounds ; and the fifth river has a very well-shaped salmon, whose 



