The Food of the Salmon. 105 



says, " All fishermen agree that they never find any food in 

 the stomach of this fish. Perhaps during the spawning time 

 they may entirely neglect their food, as the Phocas, called sea- 

 lions and sea-bears, are known to do for months together 

 during the breeding season, and it may be that like those 

 animals, the salmon returns to sea lank and lean, and comes from 

 it in good condition. It is evident that at times their food is 

 both fish and worms, for the angler uses both with good 

 success, as well as a large gaudy fly, which the fish probably 

 mistakes for a gay libellula, or dragon fly" {" Gen. Zool." v. 

 Part I., p. 42). The preposterous idea that any fish can subsist 

 without ever taking food was maintained by Daniel, who 

 stoutly argued that the salmon lived on nothing but water ! 

 Dr. Knox states that from the time the salmon enters the 

 fresh water it ceases to feed, properly speaking, although it 

 may occasionally rise to a fly, or be tempted to attack a worm 

 or a minnow, in accordance seemingly with its original habits 

 as a smolt. Bat after first descending to the ocean and 

 tasting its marine food, it never again resorts to its infantile 

 food as a constant mode of nourishment. This great fact, 

 he continues, well understood by fishermen and anglers, has 

 been placed by Mr. Young-, of Invershaw, beyond all doubt. 

 Nothing is ever found in the stomach and intestines of the 

 fresh sea salmon but a little reddish substance, which Dr. 

 Knox, after a careful microscopic examination, concluded to 

 be the ova of some species of Echinodermata. Of the salmon, 

 therefore, while in the sea, he maintains this to be the sole and 

 constant food. 



M. Valenciennes describes the salmon as voracious, and 

 states that its food consists of fishes (Ammodytes Tobianus), 

 but Dr. Knox asserts that there exists not a single fact in 

 the history of British salmon to support this opinion. He refers 

 to various fanciful theories suggested by fishermen and others 

 in regard to the marine food of the salmon, and concludes 

 by stating that in spring, as the spawn fish are descending 

 with the smolts, they may occasionally be tempted with an 

 artificial fly or lob-worm, but as to their feeding regularly in 

 rivers, Mr. Young's experiments have negatived the assumption 

 beyond all doubt. 



Dr. Knox is here partly right and partly wrong ; he is 

 right in saying that the fresh-water salmon seldom or ever 

 feeds, but unquestionably wrong in maintaining so positively 

 that other fish never constitute the salmon's food in the sea. 

 The same writer thought that the excellent quality of the 

 salmon as an article of food is to be traced to the rich eggs 

 of the Echinodermata, which he considered to be its principal 

 food. 



