THE SALMON. 257 



cannot have access to the sea." They are however, it 

 must be added, small in size and inferior in flavour. Not 

 long ago, an instance was published in the Field in which 

 salmon smolts, after seven years' confinement in a fresh- 

 water pond near Bedale, were found full of ripe roe. As 

 was remarked on this occasion, Salmon have been known 

 to grow to six or seven pounds weight in other parts of 

 our own country without visiting the sea; so that this 

 convenient combination of salt and fresh water is not 

 necessaiy in order to prove the permanent residence of 

 the Ontario Salmon, and its existence — though fully be- 

 lieved in by many at this present moment — is in reality 

 purely imaginary. 



Another suggestion was that these fish were not 

 salmon at all, but simply Bull-trout.* The difference, how- 

 ever, between the two is unmistakeable. In the latter 

 the spots on the gill-covers are larger and more numerous 

 than in the former ; it has a greater number on the back 

 and shoulders; the scales are proportionately smaller, and 

 the teeth longer and more powerfully made ; while the 

 flesh is of a fainter pink and inferior flavour. There are 

 other and more minute differences in the fins and in 

 the form of the tail, as well as in the number of the 

 vertebriB, which is one less than in the solar ^ or fifty- nine 



* Salmo eriox. 

 S 



