(196 Queries and Answers. 
The Samlet, Butcher, and Gillion. (p. 94.) — Sir, I offer a few remarks, in reply to Mr. Haw- 
kins’s enquiry, whether the sam/et ever becomes a salmon. The ready answer is, that the samlet. 
is a perfectly distinct species of fish, propagating its kind like all other species; having a regular 
course of existence proper to itself, and being connected with the salmon no otherwise than their 
being generally found together in the same rivers: and yet your correspondent is fully justified 
in putting the question, for a great deal of mystery and misconception have prevailed as to the 
origin and ultimate destiny of the fish in question ; and purporting to remove these, in the pre- 
sent remarks, it will require going pretty freely into the natural history of the case. 
The Samet is a small fish, from 6 to 8in. in length, and 3 or 40z. in weight, distinguishable 
from a fresh-water trout of the same size, chiefly by a row of light blue blotches down each side. 
Its natural element is the sea, but, like most of the salmon genus, it annually ascends our rivers, 
almost to their sources, and for the same purpose in all; that of depositing their spawn in the 
gravelly beds of the streams, far from the many marine enemies which would entirely devour the 
whole, if lodged in the gravel and sands of the shores. It ascends the rivers in autumn, and dis- 
appears from them in winter; and very probably that appearance and disappearance have been 
the source of the many strange and absurd opinions entertained at different periods concerning it, 
as well as the numerous local names given to it. In this neighbourhood it is called a Wrack- 
rider, from its appearing in autumn when the streams are full of wrack, and frequently rising to 
the angler’s fly from those vegetable beds. In Cumberland it is called a Brandling ; in the higher 
course of the Severn a Laspring ; and in Wales, and many other parts of England and Scotland, it 
has other local names; and these, again, have tended to increase the confusion accompanying its 
natural history. ‘The circumstance, too, of its beeing found in most of the rivers frequented by 
the salmon, has originated many of the wild notions connecting it with that fish. It was long be- 
lieved to be a spurious brood of the salmon, incapable of propagation, by the whole race being of 
one sex ; a monstrous anomaly, unworthy of the meanest naturalist, by admitting that the many 
millions which annually enter our rivers were the constant blundering productions of a power so 
undeviatingly correct in all its other infinity of progeny. 
It is universally true, that all anomalous productions in organic nature are limited to indivi- 
duals, and never extend into a general and continuous succession. That absurd notion was fol- 
lowed by one equally groundless, that samlets were the young fry of salmon, and ultimately grew 
up into that fish. The case is easily refuted. Samlets abound in our rivers only in autumn, when 
the salmon are mostly ascending to deposit theiy spawn many wecks subsequently ; and that spawn 
is not animated into a fish of the size of a samlet until the following March and April, when the 
rivers swarm with them, and when no trace of the samlet remains. To the practised angler, the 
young salmon and samlet are as distinctly known from each other as the chicken and duckling. 
The tisherman’s account, mentioned by Mr. Hawkins, of having wired the tail of a samlet, and 
afterwards found it a salmon, is utterly unworthy of the least credit. In all cases of mysteries, 
the delusion is kept up by similar idle stories. ‘The tail of fish is the sole instrument of propul- 
sion, and in so small a one as the samlet, a very moderate piece of wire would soon exhaust and 
destroy it. The number of salmon entering the Severn is probably less than as one to five hun- 
dred of the samlets, and the same little fish of two or three ounces, returning a dozen pounds in 
weight, into the hands of the same individual, and at the same local situation, holds out such a 
chain of improbabilities, as to furnish another striking instance of the easy credence which ab- 
surdities obtain in the absence of understanding. In former times, when ghosts were in fashion, 
every parish had its particular histories of the nightly wanderings of some of its former residents ; 
and these midnight itinerants, like the fisherman’s samlet, never showed themselves to more than 
a single witness at atime. These fuoleries have passed away ; but, stranger yet, natural history 
still abounds with its spectral phantoms of upas trees, serpent fascinations, innate instincts, and 
numerous others. 
In Mr. Hawkins’s other query, as to whether the Botcher, the Gillion, and the Salmon are merely 
varieties or the same fish, a direct answer cannot be given ;.the first twonames being strictly local, 
and affording no means of knowing what sorts of fish are really intended. A short notice, however, 
of the natural habitudes of the salmon, will be quite sufficient to solve the case. ‘The natural ele- 
ment of the salmon, as observed before, is the sea. There only is to be found in abundance that 
natural and nutritious food which promotes his early and rapid growth, and restores his wasted 
frame from the extreme exhaustion, generally amounting to half its original weight, in which it 
always returns from fresh into sait water. ‘The safe propagation of the species requires that the 
spawn should be deposited and covered up in beds of gravel, at the bottom of running water ; and 
were than done in the shores of the ocean, the whole would be soon rooted up and devoured by 
crabs, flounders, sand eels, shell-fish, and many other hungry depredators, always in search of 
food in such situations. In the streams of rivers there are no such enemies ; and hence it is, and 
solely on that account, that the old fish annually quit the element, so healthy and congenial to 
their nature, for one wherein, from entering it, they experience so much of privation and waste. 
In that situation the spawn safely progresses into life, and the young attain a size and activity 
enabling them to pass down into their natural element with powers of escape from their many 
marine pursuers. The spawn is deposited in the last three months of the year, and in March 
and April the young are several inches in length. The same young fish return back into the 
rivers in August, September, and October, and are then called Gilses, and so wonderfully rapid 
has their growth been, that the same fish, which in March weighed two or three ounces, weigh as 
gilse, from six to eight or ten pounds ; an increase, in so short a period, of fifty times the origi- 
nal weight. The gilse, on their second visit into fresh water, are deemed salmon. Such is the 
simple history of this noble fish, and it brushes away all the silly anomalous blunderings of mixing 
it up and mystifying it with other species. 
A very singular instance of the kind occurs in a quarter the least to be expected of ail others. 
The late lamented and highly gifted President of the Royal Society, in his Saldmonza, intimates 
that the sea-trout, here called a Bull-trout, is probably derived from the fresh-water trout. The 
probability is wholly groundless ; for no two species can be more distinctly separate. The sea, or 
bull, trout, very abundant in this country, passes through a routine of existence precisely similar 
to that of the salmon, and even matches it in size, sometimes attaining a weight of more than 
twenty pounds, but it is very inferior for the table. A third distinct species, of the same genus 
and habitudes, but much less in size, weighing only from two to three pounds, also abounds here, 
called a Whitling, and having many other local names in other places. It is an excellent fish for 
the table, and one of the most nimble and amusing on the angle line, running with great force, 
and often leaping 3 or 4 ft. above the water. All these marine emigrants are rapidly decreasing 
from the great destruction of them in fresh water. A salmon is only fit for the table im the first 
