THE NEW ART OF BBEEDIN6 FISH. 117 



salmon, with lists of salmon flies for every good 

 river in the empire." The second part contains two 

 long chapters on " the natural history of the salmon, 

 all its known habits described, and on the best way of 

 artificially breeding it." The information embodied 

 in these two chapters was obtained by me from 

 Mr. Young orally, and from his published and private 

 writings. I believe in the correctness of that infor- 

 mation, and I believe it-^illustrated as it is with col- 

 ored plates after nature of the salmon — ah ovo to 

 the smolt state inclusive — the most valuable as yet 

 published on the history and habits of the salmon, 

 and on the means of breeding it artificially. In a 

 letter from Mr. Young to me, dated December 17, 

 1849, and part published in the Book of Salmon, pp. 

 158, 159, and 160, he writes, -" I have been experi- 

 menting on salmon for upwards of 30 years. Few, 

 I believe, if any, have paid the attention to the ha- 

 bits of salmon I have done. To enumerate all the 

 experiments I have made would fill volumes. On 

 this point I must abridge. In 1834, and for a num- 

 ber of years following, we [I suppose Mr. Young and 

 his assistants] marked spawned fish for the purpose of 

 settling the question, denied by many, of the return 

 of salmon to their native rivers. This we did satisfac- 

 torily. We, in 1835, marked smolts to ascertain 

 and set at rest the following point, denied by many, 

 viz., that the smolts returned grilse the same year 

 they first went from the rivers to the sea in the smolt 

 state. The experiments proved this also ; and spe- 



