196 APPENDIX. 



found in foul fish, and some persons consider it as a 

 sure sign that such salmon have spawned. Both 

 these insects have, however, been observed at the 

 same time on one fish. 



Willoughby, De Hist. Piscium, lib. 4, p. 189, 

 states that in the river Ribble, which has its rise 

 above Settle in Yorkshire, and runs into the sea 

 below Preston in Lancashire, salmon in the first 

 year are called smelts; in the second, sprods ; in 

 the third, morts ; in the fourth, fork-tails; in the 

 fifth, half-fish ; in the sixth, being fully grown and 

 having attained a just size, they were salmon. This 

 information, he says, he had from a friend, but he 

 does not appear to have received it with implicit 

 faith, for he adds, that " there are others who say 

 the salmon is of more rapid growth, arriving 

 at perfection in three years/' The writer has 

 heard in Lancashire the terms sprod and mord 

 vaguely used to designate salmon trouts of dif- 

 ferent sizes, but he never met with a person who 

 was able to inform him of the weight, size, and 

 marks of the trout to which the name of sprod or of 

 mord was to be properly applied. It is scarcely 

 necessary to add, that there is as little reason for 

 distinguishing salmon of the fourth year, as fork- 

 tails, as to make a long tail the distinguishing pecu- 

 liarity of a cow of the same age. If the salmon of 

 the Ribble were only considered such in their 

 sixth year, they must have been either of slow 

 growth or great size. 



Izaak Walton, borrowing from Gesner, and thus 

 giving a proof that neither his authority nor himself 



