72 



that, with respect to the habits of the salmon, 

 there is in reality very little known. I was 

 a good deal surprised to perceive it stated* 

 with so much confidence that the salmon 

 which breeds in our rivers, and is caught in 

 them during every month in the year, except 

 when fishing is prohibited is decidedly a 

 sea fish, and resides eleven months out of 

 twelve in the sea. Confident assertion is 

 much easier than proof, and I should meet 

 this latter statement by a simple denial, 

 leaving the person who made it to establish 

 his dictum by something like fact and ob- 

 servation, rather than by a new definition of 

 the word river, which makes it improper to 

 speak of the Thames at London, the Ouse 

 at Selby, and the Tyne at Newcastle, as 

 rivers. What should we think of the person 

 who should maintain, in opposition to the 

 evidence of both sense and experience, that 

 the cuckoo, the swallow, and the nightin- 



* By Dr. Fleming, Evidence before the Committee on 

 the Salmon Fisheries. 



