THE NEW AKT OF BKEEDING FISH. 119 



state." Who can doubt after this that the silvery- 

 coated sinolt, in length and weight about the adniea-| 

 surement of a very large sprat, is a young salmon 

 about a year old, and that at that age it migrates for 

 the first tiine to sea, and does not wait until it is two 

 years old to assume the silvery and migratory coat, 

 as Mr. Shaw maintained it did. By Mr. Yoiing's 

 discovery we have a very important fact proved, viz., 

 that grilse, weighing from four to eight pounds, are 

 young salmon of 15 or 18 months old, a little more or 

 less ; that they breed towards the end of their second 

 year, and that they are adult salmon in the middle, 

 and not unfrequently in the early part of the third, 

 year of their existence. 



Before I proceed to analyze M. Coste's Instruc- 

 tions Pratiques mr la Pisciculture,, &c., and A Trea- 

 tise on the Propagation of Salmon and other Fish, 

 by Edmund and Thomas Ashworth, the latter being 

 little more than a translation of the best parts of the 

 former work, I shall lay down briefly a few salient 

 items of the salmon's natural history. In order to 

 preserve that valuable fish, and to multiply it by 

 artificial breeding, its history and habits, as far as 

 they have been discovered, should be known. 



The salmon is a fresh-water fish. In fresh water 

 it breeds, and remains in it during the whole of the 

 first year of its Hfe. As long as it lives it passes, on 

 an average, two thirds of every year in fresh water. 



It never breeds in lochs, lakes, pools, or deep 

 still water, but invariably in fords and shallows, and 



