SALMQ'NIDM 63 



inhabitants in the unwholesome devouring of foul salmon when they are out of 

 season, which is after they have cast their spawn, upon which they do not only 

 grow very weak and flabby, but so unwholesome as it would loathe any man to 

 see them." Not many months since I saw some unseasonable salmon in the 

 possession of a fisherman, and inquired wbat he intended to do with them. He 

 informed me they were useless in the market, because if cooked their flesh would 

 become more or less black ; but, with a grin, continued, that they did excellently 

 well kippered ! 



A. — Deciduous vomerine teeth (Sahnones). 1 



SYNOPSIS OF SPECIES. 



a. About eleven rows of scales in an oblique line from adipose dorsal fin to the 



lateral-line. 



1. Salmo salar, D. 13-14, P. 14, V. 9, A. 11, L. 1. 120-125. 



b. Fourteen or more rows of scales in an oblique line from adipose dorsal fin to the 



lateral-line. 



2. Salmo trutta, D. 12-14, P. 14-15, V. 9, A. 10-12, L.l. 120-130. 



2 A. Salmo levenensis, D. 13-14, P. 14-15, V. 9, A. 10-12, L. 1. 115-130. 

 2 B. Salmo fario, D. 13-15, P. 14-15, V. 9, A. 10-12, L. 1. 115-130. 



The true salmons which are included in this division of the genus Salmo consist 

 of fishes which normally reside in the sea (although in some latitudes they live in 

 lakes), and migrate to rivers in which their ova are deposited and the young 

 hatched and reared. Here we have true anadromous forms, and as the salmon or 

 salmon-trout have the same peculiarity in selecting suitable localities for breeding, 

 differentiated by the fish ascending to nearer the sources of rivers, I propose giving 

 a brief outline of how reproduction is carried on. 



Salmon enter our rivers in varying numbers throughout the year, unless 

 impurities (as in the Thames) have annihilated the breed. At certain times, as 

 during the cold season, they ascend for the purpose of reaching their spawning 

 beds, and having deposited their eggs in redds or nests, they descend to the 

 sea in a miserable condition, many of the males succumbing from exhaustion. 

 Rondeletius and also Gesner, who wrote upon the salmon upwards of three and a 

 quarter centuries ago, were both upholders of the doctrine that salmon spawned in 

 the sea, one which, were it believed in and acted upon, would be disastrous to our 

 salmon fisheries, as it might be advanced that these fishes could as well breed in 

 the ocean as in rivers, consequently on their behalf no necessity arises for keeping 

 our fresh waters pure, or having free passes in our streams in order to allow them 

 to reach their spawning-beds. It was probably from such views sprang the notion 

 of the parr being a distinct species, and even now there are some who doubt 

 whether our " last springs " are the young of Salmo salar. Willughby, in his 

 History of Fishes, published in 1686, lib. iv, adduces his reasons for disputing the 

 correctness of Rondeletius's and Gesner's opinions; while Pontoppidan, in 1755, 

 in his Natural History of Norway, returned to Gesner's views, asserting that 

 he was well assured that salmon chiefly eject their roe at the mouths of rivers, 

 where they empty themselves into the sea, or else a little above the salt water. 

 Mr. Brander (Field) remarked upon having observed during the preceding summer 

 some holes scooped out in the gravel close to the mouth of the small river Lopie 

 (near the Spey), and within the reach of the salt water, and here he found in 

 January, 1882, a few salmon working at their redds, which were within a mile and 

 a half of the sea, and covered once a fortnight at spring tides w r ith quite salt and 

 undrinkable water, for perhaps an hour's time. Sir James Matheson, in Davy's 

 Philosophical Researches (p. 261), has recorded at the mouth of the Greamster, in 

 the Island of Lewis, a similar instance, continuing that the spot is covered with 



