THE SALMON. 155 



received from Baron Cuvier the erroneous name of 

 Salmo hamatm, as if it were a distinct species,* 

 so difficult may it sometimes be for a philosopher in 

 a great city to acquire the knowledge of a fact, 

 elsewhere known familiarly from boyhood, by lonely 

 herdsmen on ten thousand hills. How the Ettrick 

 Shepherd would have marvelled that such a thing 

 could be ! Yet James Hogg himself was not seldom 

 a marvellous man in his narrations. To proceed. 

 In this full breeding dress the male and female seek 

 some rippling ford or shallow stream, and commence 

 to excavate a spawning trench or furrow. The 

 usual statement or received opinion regarding this 

 portion of their history is, that both sexes aid in 

 the removal of the gravel, and that they chiefly 

 use their heads or snouts, the upturning of the 

 under jaw in the male being in fact described by 

 almost all authors as the very implement formed 

 by nature for the special purpose. 



But (to digress again for a moment) writers 

 on this, and innumerable other subjects, may be 

 likened to a flock of sheep about to enter park or 

 pasture ground. The way is by no means narrow, 

 and there is much hallooing with stentorian lungs, 

 while the arms of brawny butchers wave like wind 

 mills, and shepherds dogs utter their short uneasy 

 bark, with burning breath, fierce eyes, and fiery 

 tongue ; but not a fleece of all that woolly mass 

 will move an inch. Then all at once, for no ap- 

 parent reason, at least for none which did not 



* Regne Animal, t. ii. p. 303. 



