4 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
dreaded disease makes its appearance. This 
shows as a white fungus about the head and 
shoulders, and gradually spreads until the fish 
sickens and dies. Hardly anything is known 
about the disease, except that it is infectious. 
Newly-run salmon that come in contact with 
affected fish soon develop it; and when once it 
breaks out, there is scarcely an individual but 
what shows signs of the fungus. Spates and 
floods tend to eradicate it, and these alone. 
An interesting fact anent salmon is that they 
produce hybrids with other fish. They breed 
freely with brown-trout, brook-trout, also those 
peculiar to Loch Leven; and this is the more 
remarkable as the offspring from this cross 
in no wise sacrifice their fertility. That salmon 
and trout are commonly found on the same 
‘“‘redd” has long been known to poachers, though 
scientists have only admitted the fact recently. 
Here is an actual incident. Upon one occasion 
a poacher found a freshly-run male salmon watch- 
ing over a female, the former of which he gaffed. 
Knowing that a second suitor would soon take 
the place of the first, he allowed the she-fish to 
remain. A second male attended her, a third, 
and a fourth, she starting down-stream each time 
her lord was taken. Upon her fifth return she 
brought back a large yellow trout, and so much 
