FISHES. 585 
pounds. The herring-trout, never found in English rivers, and only 
caught on our coast by herring-trawlers, i is a special favourite : may 
it not be the whitling of the French rivers? In all other species 
colour varies with locality, and cannot be accounted for. 
We have seen how rapidly the young salmon increase in size in 
the sea... During this stage of existence the salmon, béing a carni- 
vorous.fish, rapidly develops itself from the grilse to the adult state. 
From a careful analysis made by Dr. Wilson Johnston, of the Bengal 
army, it appears that there is no recorded instance of healthy salmon 
partaking of herring or sand-lances ; the tape-worm and other con- 
ditions of perverted appetite were found inall. Tape-worm is most 
common in the hybrid Norwegian, and perhaps explains the reason 
why Clupeade are sometimes found in their stomachs. Should the 
fish not be charged with spawn, it will shortly return to sport among 
‘the dancing waves; but if matured for breeding, at which period 
the female shows a dirty brown hue, and the male a black, they 
mate, choose a spot for the salmon nest, and there deposit myriads 
of ova.~ The longer a salmon continues in the river the duller 
their colour becomes; their flavour is greatly depreciated; so that 
Izaak Walton’s statement, that ‘the further they get from the 
sea they be both fatter and better,” is dead against our dai 
experience. 
During the period of river residence salmon never feed. It avails 
not to argue that féar-acts“as an emetic and empties the stomach ; 
the incontestable fact remains that the entire gastro-intestinal tract 
ab ore ad ano is in ninety-nine per cent. devoid of any trace of food. 
Juvenile experience on the part of ‘the fish, recurring as a phantasm, 
causes them to snap at a shining artificial minnow or a gaudy fly, but 
they never rise out of the water; the bait must dip to them, and 
when hooked they shake the intruder asa terrier does arat. If salmon 
never feed in fresh water, what is the rationale of their existing there ? 
Well, the superabundant store of fat deposited in their areolar tissue 
the fatty supply stored by the Asiatic and African doomba sheep, 
which is, drawn upon to sustain life-action, when zéves, avalanches, or 
a heavy snow-fall imprisons the crop of herbage. That continued 
muscular exertion can be sustained without special fatigue on non- 
nitrogenous diet, Fick and Wislicensus have proved by their recent 
ascent of the Faulhorn: it is moreover notorious that the chamois 
hunter and the Hindoo runner prefer fats and. saccharoids. _Is there , 
any show of reason, then, why the salmon should not maintain its” 
fresh-water muscular tear and wear by a stock of non-nitrogenous fatty 
