THE FEEDING OF SALMON 113 
and the impulse to take them is in all likelihood the 
same impulse which enables the salmon to nourish 
himself at other times. In this sense the fish may 
be said to feed, while at the same time there is 
nothing unnatural in allowing that the wobbling of 
an apparently half-dead dace or sprat over a salmon’s 
head may incite the poor fish’s rage, or that the ex- 
quisite colouring of what is called a fly may produce 
a flash of keen emotion, as has been said by some. 
When the digestive tract of the salmon taken at 
the mouth of the river is examined, it is natural to 
suppose, since the fish is more recently from the sea 
than is the upper water fish, that more trace of 
feeding will be found. Grey and Tosh, in 1894 and 
1895, examined 1694 salmon in the Tweed, 1442 of 
the fish being taken at the mouth of the river in the 
nets of the Berwick Salmon Fisheries Company.* 
Of those Berwick fish 128, or 9 per cent., contained 
food. The following table shows in a condensed 
form the times at which the fish with food were 
taken :— 
Number ™ er 
Month. examined. with Food. with Food. 
February . 7 1 14:3 
March . ‘ ‘ ‘ 46 20 43°4 
April . ‘ “ ‘ 133 53 36°9 
May . ‘ ‘ 5 215 36 16°7 
June . " a P 236 31 13-1 
July . . . : 283 5 aber d 
August 5 : . 210 8 3°8 
September . ‘i ‘ 106 2 2-0 
It is noticeable at once that the greatest number 
* Fourteenth Annual Report, Fishery Board for Scotland | 
Part II. Note 2. 
H 
