152 ANGLING. 



supposes it may be at a rate of from 10 to 25 miles 

 a-day. In their more lengthened courses, however, 

 up great navigable rivers, where the beds are deep 

 and the interruptions infrequent, the rate at which 

 this powerful species journeys is probably much 

 more rapid. It has also been observed, that if 

 danger appears to threaten them, or if they seek to 

 avoid a sudden snare, the rapidity of their swim- 

 ming is so great that the eye can scarcely follow 

 them. " Experience has proved, that in tranquil 

 lakes, they can go eight or ten leagues in an hour, and 

 about twenty-four feet in a second. This rate of 

 going would give 86,400 feet in an hour, and sup- 

 pose the faculty of making the tour of the globe in 

 some weeks."* 



We know as yet too little regarding the identity 

 of foreign species with our own, to be able to deduce 

 any general law from special facts derived from 

 distant sources, but if, as many suppose, our 

 salmon reaches the slopes of the Cordilleras by 

 means of the far flowing and magnificent Maragnon, 

 then it must run a course of some 800 leagues. 

 Bearing in mind, however, that the salmon is truly a 

 northern fish, and also remembering those laws of 

 geographical distribution which regulate, and with 

 few exceptions circumscribe, the localities of living 

 creatures, we think it more than likely that the 

 South American salmon belongs to another species. 

 We know, however, that our common kind (Salmo 

 salar) although it does not occur in any part of the 



* Griffith's Animal Kingdom, x. 471. 



