SECTION 11. 



ON THE NATURE, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF SALMON. 



" La nature de toute principe des choses est le secret du Crfiateur. Notre nature 

 — oelle de I'univers — oelle de la moindre plante — tout est plonge pour nous dans un 

 gouffre de t€nfebres." — Voltaire, 



Salmon, like herrings, are both a gregarious and migratory- 

 fish. Hatched in rivers, they perform a migration to the ocean, 

 whence they return periodically to their natal streams ; and 

 they form themselves into gregarious collections, or shoals, 

 composed of separate tribes, or families, belonging to the re- 

 spective rivers, which keep distinct from each other during the 

 period of their migratory abode in the sea. 



Some have called the salmon a sea fish, merely because it 

 performs a temporary migration from its native river to the 

 ocean. On the same principle, a parrot, born in India, which 

 has passed his life in this country, may be called an English 

 bird. A salmon is a true highlander, born amid the mountaius, 

 but who, like other highlanders, goes to forage elsewhere. A 

 salmon, which returns to an early river in December, will not 

 leave it till after it has spawned the December following, — ^thus 

 remaining near twelve months in the river. Some even go the 

 length of saying that salmon breed ia the sea, as if they had 

 ever seen different or contrary instincts exist in the same spe- 

 cies of animals ; but Mr Hogarth's experiment has proved, 

 what, indeed, required no proof, that the thing is impossible ; 

 for, having reared fry iu a bottle, the ova which he put into salt 

 water perished ; and even some of the fry, which had been re- 

 moved into salt water at an earlier period of their existence than 

 when they naturally proceed to the sea, died. Yet one of the 



