56 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



marked characters, exist in our rivers, and if fish from their appearance could he 

 clearly referred as having been received from certain waters. Speaking generally, 

 there would be nothing very remarkable in the existence of peculiarities in local 

 races due to local circumstances. Thus we are told that the higher the latitudes, 

 as a rule, the smaller the fish, possibly one result of cold and a diminished food 

 supply affecting their size : the form of the body is much deeper in some races 

 than it is in others* : and local causes may modify the taste as to its richness 

 or dryness for food, &c., also the external colour or that of the flesh intemally.f 



South Esks at Montrose, that " the species of salmon is quite different in these two rivers, one is 

 a large coarse scaly fish, and the other a smaller and finer fish " (p. 14). Mr. Bell stated that the 

 " Aberdeen fish is quite different from the Tay, different in the scale " (p. 28). Mr. Little stated 

 that, " I beUeve that every river has a peculiar kind of fish attached to it, both as to salmon and 

 grilse. We have three fishings that fall aU into one bay in Ireland, the Bush, the Ban, and the 

 Foyle ; and we can easily distinguish the fish of all the different rivers when we take them. The 

 salmon in the Bush is a long-bodied roimd salmon nearly as thick at the head as he is at 

 the middle. The salmon that we kill at the Ban is what I call a very neat-made fish, very broad 

 at the shoulders, and the back fin tapering away towards the tail, and quite a different shaped 

 fish from the Bush fish. The Foyle is a river that we seldom get any large salmon in " (p. 112). 



In the Report of the Committee on the Salmon Fisheries for 1824, the following evidence was 

 given by witnesses. Mr. J. Wilson deposed: "I am fuUy of opinion that every river has a 

 peculiar breed of salmon : they all return to the same river where they were bred. ... I have 

 attended a few weeks in the year at Montrose : there are two rivers ; the South Esk is about four 

 miles from the North Esk, and the species of salmon is quite different in the two rivers." J. Bell 

 deposed as his reason for believing distinct races of fish came from, and returned, to the same 

 river, " because there are different sizes : because the Isla fish is not above 7 lb. or 8 lb. in weight : 

 the Tay fish on the average is from 12 lb. to 14 lb. weight," and in his opinion the fish 

 always ascended the river where they are bred. " Fish take their own rivers : the Aberdeen fish 

 is quite different from the Tay, different in the scale." J. Proudfoot thought that fish bred in a 

 river will endeavour to return to that river again : one reason being on account of the weight of 

 the fish in the Tay, which were rather above what he had seen in the Tweed, and that the stake 

 nets being placed along the shore, to the eastward of the mouth of the Tay there are fish of 

 about the same average weight caught there as in the Tay. Small fish were deemed Isla fish, 

 larger ones Tay fish, but Were he to take fish in the Frith, he could not say to which river they 

 belonged. J. HaUiday stated that he could not distinguish between the fish caught in one river 

 from those caught in another it they were of exactly the same size and make, and taken at the 

 mouth of the river, and he did not beheve in the stated differences (I.e. page 87). 



Mr. Loch remarking of the Shin river in Sutherlandshire, observed that " the river is divided 

 into three nearly equal parts. The upper and lower portions having a fine gravelly bottom and full 

 of excellent spawning beds. The central portion consists of a series of rocky rapids terminating in 

 a considerable cataract, up which none but the most powerful fish could make their way : this 

 impediment, together with the absence of all oruive dikes until the year 1788, appears to have 

 produced an uncommonly large breed of fish : for up to a recent period many salmon, weighing 

 from 30 lb. to 40 lb. were caught in this river : but as it became more closely fished their size 

 diminished."— Afa^. Nat. Hist, i, 1837, p. 208. 



Mackenzie (Salmon Fishery of Scotland, 1860, page 16) considered that every river, and even 

 every branch and tributary stream of a river in which salmon are produced, has a variety of the 

 species peculiar to itself, and which return regularly to it from their migration to the sea. He 

 remarked that " in some rivers they are long and narrow or lank ; in others broad and short — so 

 broad and so short that when cut up they are nearly circular. In one river we find all the salmon 

 straight in the back — in another round or hog backed. In some rivers their heads are all large 

 and clumsy — in others small and neat. Even in the spots and scales there is often a visible 

 difference. In short, the distinctions are so numerous that it is needless to detail them. The 

 salmon of some rivers are so strongly marked that a stranger would recognize them at a glance, 

 while he would only be sensible of the distinctions between them and others by comparing them, 

 when the difference would strike him at once " (p. 17). 



Mr. Willis-Bund considered that in the Lower Severn " different kinds (or races) of salmon 

 are met with. There is the ordinary Severn fish : a longer and lankier fish is said to be a Wye 

 fish: a short thick fish that the fishermen speak of as " Uskers." The two last he has not 

 seen above Tewkesbury Weir, but forms so vary that he considers it as " almost impossible 

 even for the most experienced to say positively that such a fish belongs to a particular river " 

 (Salmon Problems, p. 146). 



* Norris tells us that at Pulaski, " there were formerly three salmon streams in this 

 vicinity — Grindstone Creek, Deer Creek, and Salmon Eiver, and each stream had a different 

 type of fish. An experienced fisherman would readily tell from which stream a fish was caught, 

 though they were but four miles apart. In Deer Creek the fish were long and slim, in 

 Grindstone short and chubby, and in Salmon Eiver large and heavy " (American Angler, p. 177). 



t Superior forms may be inherited, or else be owing to the greater abundance and 

 more nourishing character of the food present in the sea feeding-grounds of some than it 



