108 The Food of the Salmon. 



fresh water. I do not pretend to say that a fresh-water salmon 

 never by any chance takes a particle of food, but that its doing 

 so is so rare as merely to prove by its exception the generality 

 of the rule. It must also be remembered that some fish will 

 occasionally take a tempting bait more for sport than for food. 

 A pike, when absolutely gorged with food, will not unfrequently 

 seize a bait in his mouth, and yet refuse to swallow it, as 

 trollers who use a gorge-bait well kuow. What does an arti- 

 ficial salmon-fly resemble in nature ? Certainly no kind of winged 

 insect, not even a gaudy libellula or agrion either in form or 

 motion, for no libellula ever swims in the water, least of all 

 after the fashion in which the artificial fly is made to loco- 

 mote by the angler. Some have thought, among whom is Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, " that the rising of salmon and sea-trout at 

 these bright flies, as soon as they come from the sea into 

 rivers might depend upon a sort of imperfect memory of their 

 early smolt habits." But it is more probable the salmon takes 

 the glittering fly — which is allowed to sink a little in the 

 water — for a fish, for fish forms his principal food when an 

 inhabitant of the sea. But be this as it may, the undoubted 

 fact that the stomachs and intestines of fresh-water salmon 

 are almost invariably found empty is a convincing proof, for 

 reasons adduced above, that this fish abstains from food during 

 its sojourn in fresh water. 



4. With respect to the physiological paradox as to how an 

 animal can live without taking food, it must be borne in mind 

 in the first place, that, notwithstanding the voracity of the 

 carnivorous fishes, and their extraordinary digestive capabilities, 

 they are able to exist for long periods of time without food. 

 Gold and silver fish may be kept for months without per- 

 ceptible food, and certainly as we descend the scale of creation 

 we shall find instances of long- continued abstinence more fre- 

 quently. Snails in conchological cabinets have been known to 

 live for years without a particle of food or drink. Frogs and 

 toads will unquestionably exist for years immured in wood and 

 stone in positions which entirely forbid the introduction of any 

 kind of food. 



But there must be a limit to this power of existing without 

 food. A salmon, if he was never to eat, would undoubtedly 

 die. But how, it will be asked, can muscular force be main- 

 tained for so many months without food ? There can be no 

 other explanation than this, that the salmon lives on his own 

 abundant fat, stores of which are laid up throughout the 

 whole body of the fish, but especially in the abdominal regions. 

 This supply of fat was deposited during the time the salmon 

 was an inhabitant of the sea, and when, as I have said above, 

 he is a voracious feeder. Now we know, notwithstanding the 



