CORRESPONDENCE OF RAT. 127 



Mr. Johnson to Mr. Rat. 



Dear Sir, — What I said of salmon being perfect at 

 their first return from sea, I did not mean that they 

 were come to their utmost growth or bigness, for I think 

 they wax for five or six years ; but that they were true 

 salmons, i. e. neither trout, scurfe, nor grey, but bigger 

 than any of these, and bring forth young that year. In 

 the river Tees we take notice but of two distinctions of 

 size, viz. a salmon cock, which some call a half-fish, 

 usually about twenty or twenty-two inches, and a whole 

 fish, above that length. In the mouth of Eden, in Cum- 

 berland, the fishers have four distinctions of yearly growth 

 (after the first summer, when they call them free, or 

 frie, as we smowts, or smelts) before they come to be 

 lackes ; and this, they say, they have curiously observed, 

 by fixing so many pins in the fins of yearlings, or two 

 years old, and after taking them again ; and thus, per- 

 haps, in nibble they have made the like observation, 

 though I am a little jealous that their Sprods are but 

 Scurves [Sahio truttci] , their Moris [Morts, Salmo erioai] 

 Greys, their Fork-tails [young salmon, Salmo salar] our 

 Cocks, their half-fish, middling salmon, and their Salmons 

 the Lacks, or overgrown salmon. I have one observation 

 more, viz. besides what salmons are bred in our rivers, 

 there come some years from the north (I guess when the 

 winds are much northerly) great shoals of salmon, which 

 often take in at the mouths of our rivers, especially if the 

 north bar be open ; and these have a broad blue spot on 

 their heads, and are by our fishers therefore called Blue- 

 caps. The sight of one of these makes a fisher leap for 

 joy, especially if his gills be lousy, for then he is certain 

 there is a great shoal, and one starves another for want 

 of food. The manner of the breeding of eels I do not 

 certainly know, but I think them to be oviparous ; for I 

 have several times found in one small bed of mud great 

 numbers of very small eels, more, I am sure, than the 

 belly of any eel could contain, lying very close together 



