The Food of the Salmon. 109 



assertion of old Izaak Walton* to the contrary, that the longer 

 a salmon continues in fresh water the more does his flesh 

 deteriorate. Mr. Alexander B,ussel, a good authority on 

 salmon, is quite right when he says that " salmon taken in or 

 near the sea are the best for food." Let any one compare the 

 difference in the quality of the flesh between a sea-salmon 

 and one that has long been a sojourner in fresh water. He 

 will notice in the sea-salmon the abdomen to be soft and 

 tremulous with abundance of fat, that of the river-fish firm 

 and comparatively destitute of fat. And this continued 

 abstinence from food is, no doubt, in some measure the reason 

 of the fish's gradual deterioration till the exhausting process 

 of spawning renders the salmon now altogether unfit for food. 

 The salmon's abode, therefore, in fresh water should be 

 regarded as a quasi-hybernation, during which life is main- 

 tained upon stores already laid up in the organism. That 

 muscular force may be maintained, and in fact that it is chiefly 

 kept up by the combustion, not of the nitrogenous elements, 

 but of the carbonaceous, has been rendered tolerably certain, 

 and the. circumstance that a salmon may move about for a long 

 time in fresh water without supplies of food beyond his own 

 abundant fat, is not actually much more than a further instance 

 of what takes place in hybernating animals, as the bear, which 

 goes fat into winter quarters and comes out very thin. The 

 same may be said with regard to experiments that have been 

 made, showing that the Swiss mountains may be ascended 

 solely upon the strength afforded by butter and other non- 

 nitrogenous food. 



According to the researches of Dr. John Davy, ' ' the gas- 

 tric juice, and probably the other fluids concerned in the 

 function of digestion in fishes, are not secreted till the secreting 

 organs are stimulated by the presence of food — a conclusion 

 in harmony with a pretty general physiological law, and in 

 accordance with what has been best ascertained respecting the 

 gastric juice in other animals." Dr. Davy infers the following 

 corollary from the above, " that the migratory species of 

 salmon, such as the salmon and sea-trout, which attain 

 their growth, and become in high condition in the sea, there 

 abundantly feeding and accumulating adipose matter, though 

 not always abstaining in fresh water, which they enter chiefly 

 for the purpose of breeding, are at least capable of long absti- 

 nence there without materially suffering/'-f He suggests the 

 probability of this being owing to none of their secretions or 



* Walton's words are : — "It is observed that the further they get from the 

 sea, they be both fatter and better." 



f " Physiological Researches," p. 168. 



