196 Queries a?id Ansxioers. 



The Satnlet, Botcher, and GUlion, (p. 94.) — Sir, I oflffer a few remarks, in reply to Mr. Haw- 

 kins's enquiry, whetiier the samlet 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 jjurporting to remove these, in the pre- 

 sent remarks, it will require going pretty freely into the natural history of the case. 



The Samlet is a small fish, from 6 to 8 in. in length, and 3 or 4oz. 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 bedsof tlie 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 their spawn many weeks subsequently ; and that spawn 

 is not animated into a fisli 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 fisherman'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 handsof 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 someof its former residents ; 

 and "these midnight itinerants, like the fisherman's samlet, never showed themselves to more than 

 a single witness at a time. These fooleries 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 GilUon, andthe Salmon are merely 

 varieties or the same fish, a direct answer cannot be given ; the first two names 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 salt 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, rhe 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 all others. 

 The late lamented and highly gifted President of the Royal Society, in his Salmonia, 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 ])ounds, 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 otiier 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 

 ftrora the great dcstniction of them in fresh water. A salmon is only fit for the table m the first 



