THE NEW ART OF BREEDING FISH. 159 



LESSON V. 



On the 8th. December last I commenced these les- 

 sons ; I now conclude them. They have given rise 

 to most important communications to this journal, 

 on the subject of breeding salmon artificially, from a 

 Lancashire gentleman, who signs himself " Salmo," 

 and from a Scotch gentleman who has for years 

 written on all that relates to salmon, under the sig- 

 nature of " Y." They have led to other writings on 

 the subject in the provincial papers, by far the most 

 important of which are those contributed to the 

 Kelso Mail, now printed in a pamphlet form, by 

 Mr. Thomas Todd Stoddart, the author of that ex- 

 cellent book. The Angler's Companion to the Rivers 

 and Lochs of Scotland. At the end of this lesson I 

 shall make extracts from Mr. Stoddart's pamphlet. 

 In the course of my lessons I have shown that sal- 

 mon breed in the shallows of rivers, in nests they 

 form in the gravel — ^that the female deposits her ova 

 in them, and that immediately afterwards the male 

 impregnates the ova by shedding his milt upon 

 them — that the ova are hatched on an average in 

 120 days-^that the foetus so produced does not 

 assume the perfect fish form until one month old — 

 that it is then a salmon fry, and so continues to its 

 twelfth month, when it becomes a smolt, with silvery 

 coat, its length five inches or so, and its weight two 



