NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SALMONID^. 125 



This grouping commends itself not only by its simplicity 

 and convenience of classification, but also by such broadly 

 marked distinctions in regard to habits, localities, &c., as must 

 override distinctions founded upon mere technical differences. 



Of the silver or migratory division of Salmonidce, the first 

 m place, in virtue both of its pre-eminent qualities as a 

 food fish and its precedence in the estimation of fishermen, 

 is the 



SALMON {Salmo salar). 



Forty or fifty years ago comparatively little was known of 

 the natural history of the salmon. Of theory there was a 

 superabundance ; in fact it was rare to come across a salmon 

 fisher, to say nothing of a salmon 'legislator,' who had not 

 pome pet hobby of his own on the subject, ready to be trotted 

 out on the parliamentary or any other plain at the smallest 

 provocation. 



Descending, however, from theory and speculation to 

 actual knowledge, the united lore of those most interested 

 in the salmon fisheries amounted to little beyond the bare 

 truism that the fish ascended the rivers to spawn during the 

 spring and summer — spawned — and descended again to the 

 sea within the following two or three months. This, I say, was 

 the state of our salmon knowledge some forty or fifty years 

 ago. 



The last two decades, however, witnessed a very marked 

 and important advance. 



The researches of ichthyologists and the experiments which 

 have been conducted on a large scale by enterprising and 

 scientific men have thrown a flood of light upon the subject, 

 converting doubts into certainties, theories into practice, and 

 generally advancing our knowledge to a point which has been 

 productive of most important reforms in the management of 

 our exhausted salmon fisheries, and in the establishment of 

 new ones. 



Amongst those to whose exertions in the practical, per- 



