1970 Fishes. 



succeeded in killing the young ones, but the old one escaped, and the men not being 

 able to iind her, took the young ones and went to their dinner, leaving them outside 

 the kitchen-door. When they had dined, they were astonished to find the old snake 

 with her dead offspring. She must either have followed them in the distance, or, 

 which I think is more probable, have smelt their foot-prints, and so discovered 

 the bodies of her children. — E. Peacock, Jun. ; Messingham, Kirton Lindsey, Lincoln- 

 shire, Dec. 7th, 1847. 



Breeding of the Salmon. — Indebted to a friend for the perusal of ' The Angler's 

 Companion to the Rivers and Lochs of Scotland,' by Thos. Tod Stoddart, Blackwood, 

 Edinburgh, 1847. I have been so struck with his observations in the tenth chapter 

 on the breeding of salmon, that I shall here endeavour to lay them briefly before 

 the readers of the ' Zoologist.' They tend to such a revolution of the generally re- 

 ceived opinion on the subject, and at the same time support the analogy of nature, that 

 they become very interesting, and call upon all, who have the opportunity of so doing, 

 to make further and fuller inquiry. He agrees with Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, and 

 claims a priority in the advocacy of the theory, that the parr is the young of the sal- 

 mon ; but differs entirely from the opinion of Mr. Shaw, — an opinion almost univer- 

 sally entertained, — that the ova can be or ever have been naturally or artificially im- 

 pregnated after they shall have been passed from the ovarium of the female to the ex- 

 ternal air, however ripe or mature they may have been, or however carefully extracted 

 and treated thereafter. After quoting at large the well known account given by Mr. 

 Shaw of his experiments with the ova of salmou, Mr. Stoddart contends that the whole 

 of them and the conclusions drawn from them, are based upon the false but popular 

 notion that the ova of the salmon, previous to their being emitted, are in an unimpreg- 

 nated state — that, until brought then into actual contact with the milt, they are, in 

 fact, perfectly barren and unproductive. Mr. Stoddart holds it a palpable anomaly, 

 that no direct act of coition should take place between the milter and the spawner and 

 that, long previous to the effusion of the ova ; and that it is scarcely an argument to 

 say that fish are deficient in organs suited for this act. He argues, or rather asks, if 

 worms and animals both above and below fish in the scale of creation have such or- 

 gans why should the finny tribe bo without them. He denies that they are so desti- 

 tute, states it as a well ascertained fact that three-fourths of the salmon and grilse 

 which ascend Scottish rivers are female fish, and that one and all of these, without ex- 

 ception, are found to carry ova more or less developed according to the season of the 

 year or age of the fish. " Nay, more, after having spawned, and while still in the kelt 

 state, before their return to the sea, many, I do say not all, have the new roe distinctly 

 developed." These numbers preclude the idea of a pairing off in the breeding season. 

 He quotes Mr. Shaw, as admitting the fact that a female adult salmon was taken from 

 the river, in the act of spawning, in absence of the male, which he (Mr. Stoddart) 

 maintains is not at all an unfrequent case, but which, on the common theory of expel 

 ling unimpregnated ova, would show an utter waste and prodigality. The salmon 

 thus engaged is likened to the hen-bird laying her ova — whether barren or fertile ; 

 and the prevalent notion, of the mode in which the ova of fish are fertilized, is held 

 up as being as ridiculous as if the barn-door cock had to fertilize the egg after it had 

 been dropped from his mate. Again, it is stated as being very absurd to think that in 

 the midst of a resisting and decomposing medium, such as water, the vivifying power 



