Fishes. 2661 



even at the distance of thirty or forty miles from the mouth of the 

 river, in which it is anxious — at as great a height as possible — to de- 

 posit its spawn ; and this not unfrequently happens. 



The gray salmon, or, as it is called by the fishermen on the Dovern, 

 the 'bulltrout' {Salmo Eriox), is, in that locality, confounded by 

 people in general with the true salmon, of which indeed it is consi- 

 dered by purchasers there as a flabby, ill-flavoured, and perhaps an 

 unhealthy specimen. Such an opinion, however, arises merely from 

 ignorance. It is not in consequence of ill health, but of the natural 

 inferiority of its qualities, that the flesh of what is supposed to be the 

 common — but is in reality the gray — salmon has such an indifferent 

 character as an article of food. It is of a dull orange or buff colour, 

 separates easily into flakes, and has an insipid flavour. Its character 

 as a distinct species is not unknown to the fishermen, by one of whom 

 I was furnished with a specimen, which was found to agree, in the 

 minutest particulars, both with the figure and the description of the 

 gray salmon, as they are given in Mr. Yarrell's ' History of British 

 Fishes.' 



Except on a few leading and incontrovertible points, such of the 

 salmon fishermen as I have conversed with are beset with strong, 

 and, as it would seem, with insuperable prejudices. Almost every 

 individual has his own peculiar notions as to the genera and species 

 belonging to the Salmonidae, — as to the characteristics of those parti- 

 cular species with which they are themselves most especially con- 

 cerned, — and as to the appearances which these put on at certain 

 stages of their existence : every result which has been arrived at by 

 methods the most unexceptionable and convincing, they will be dis- 

 posed to laugh to scorn, unless it may happen to coincide — which it 

 frequently does not — with their own preconceived and long-cherished 

 opinions. Notwithstanding what has been so scientifically and 

 clearly demonstrated by Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrigg, I never spoke to 

 one of them who did not scout the idea that the ' parr ' * is really and 

 truly the salmon in the first stage of its growth. In like manner the 



* The parr is known on the Dovern by the name of ' branlin,' — that is, brandling, 

 — from the long and narrow brands or bands on its sides : these are about a dozen in 

 number, are disposed vertically with spaces between them, and are of a beautiful pur- 

 plish pale blue colour. As the young of all the genus Salmo have these bands, al- 

 though not of the same form, it is likely that 'branlin' is a common and indiscriminate 

 term. 



VIII E 



