OCCASIONAL NOTES. 153 



Do Salmon spawn in the Ska ?— Rondeletius and also Gesner, who 

 wrote upon the Salmon upwards of three and a quarter centuries ago, were 

 both upholders of the doctrine that Salmon spawned in the sea, which 

 were it believed in and acted upon, would be disastrous to our' Salmon' 

 fisheries, as it might be advanced that these fishes could as well breed in 

 the ocean as in rivers; consequently on their behalf no necessity arises for 

 keeping our fresh waters pure, or having free passes in our streams in order 

 to allow them to reach their spawning-beds. It was probably from such 

 views sprang the notion of the parr being a distinct fish, and even now there 

 are some who doubt whether all our last-springs are the young of Salmo 

 salar. Willughby, in his ' History of Fishes,' published in 1686, lib. iv., 

 adduces his reasons for disputing the correctness of Rondeletius 's and 

 Gesner's opinions ; while Pontopiddan, in 1755, in his < Natural History of 

 Norway,' returns to Gesner's views, which are now again brought forward 

 as novel. Pontopiddan observed that " the Salmon unquestionably breeds 

 . in the sea, though it is not entirely to be denied but that they may some- 

 times breed in rivers also, for they are found in the midst of Germany and 

 the upper parts of the Rhine, about Basel ; but we are well assured that 

 the Salmon chiefly ejects its roe at the mouths of rivers, where they empty 

 themselves into the sea, or a little beyond in the salt water, in this manner : 

 they bend themselves crooked in order to eject the roe at an aperture under 

 the belly, and in the meantime they stick their heads down in the sand 

 that they may have the more strength. The male comes presently after to 

 keep off other fish from devouring the roe, and he then bends "his head 

 towards the tail aud ejects his sperm upon the roe" (pp. 131, 133, 

 A correspondent of ' Land and Water,' May 28th, 1881, observed, "I also 

 took a samlet last month which was assuming the smolt dress, 'the ripe 

 milt from which exuded on my fingers— a circumstance common in the 

 autumn, but which has never previously come under my observation in a 

 spring smolt." Probably almost every healthy male parr, when assuming 

 its smolt dress in the autumn, has either ejected its milt in the river, or it is 

 still present at the time he is migrating into the sea. Salmon ova' can be 

 fertilised from the milt of a parr, as observed by Willughby and proved by 

 Shaw, while, should a flood carry down these fishes to the sea, it does not 

 seem a very unlikely occurrence that if captured their milt or roe might be 

 still not ejected. Irrespective of this Buckland and others have observed that 

 should this state of the rivers be such— due to pollutions or insufficiency of 

 water— that SalmonidtB are unable to ascend they may drop or deposit their 

 ova in the sea or at the mouths of rivers ; but suppose it is thus deposited, 

 " experiments have proved that the presence of salt-water is fatal to the 

 development into life of the fertilising property of the milt, as also of the 

 impregnated egg, if it come in contact with it."— Fkancis Day (Pittville, 

 Cheltenham). 



