3228 Fishes, fyc. 



taste they are too rank for description, and an Englishman would starve 

 before he could persuade himself to swallow such strong, tainted, tal- 

 low-like, raw meat. 



Since writing the above account of the salmon, two friends of mine 

 have started for the Tana, at the extreme north of Norway, a river 

 scarcely known, but reported to abound with fish. They have taken 

 with them a tent, and all the apparatus necessary for an encampment 

 of six weeks in that wild spot, depending chiefly on their rods and 

 their guns for a supply of provision. Their intention was to proceed 

 at once to the North Cape, and thence to strike across to the Tana, 

 with horses and men to carry the tent and baggage. I trust I may be 

 able to communicate to the ' Zoologist ' the result of this enterpvizing 

 expedition, and any zoological observations they may make in those 

 little-explored latitudes. 



The Trout, (Salmo Fario). Every stream, every torrent, every lake, 

 even every ditch in Norway, seems to abound with trout, generally 

 speaking of a very small size ; still these little mountain trout are very 

 delicious, and being so abundant, enable one to procure a dinner in a 

 short time, a point of no slight importance in a hungry country such 

 as Norway. But though usually so small, sometimes trout are taken 

 there of enormous weight. A Norwegian naval officer, with whom I 

 was slightly acquainted, assured me that he had himself seen a trout 

 taken in the river Logen, near the cataract called Hiinne-foss, which 

 exceeded 40 English pounds in weight : and others have mentioned 

 instances similar to this. 



When I was following the course of that glorious river, the Glom- 

 men (the largest river in Norway), for a hundred and fifty miles, I 

 learned that the method adopted there in taking fish is to spear them 

 at night by torch-light, a very curious and most picturesque sight, 

 which I was unfortunately too early in the season to witness, but 

 which I well recollect having admired in the Bay of Naples, when in 

 the beautiful cloudless starry nights of that glorious climate, the blue 

 waters of the Mediterranean were illumined here and there with the 

 glowing pan of charcoal placed on the edge of the fishing-smack, and 

 luring the unhappy fish to destruction, just as a candle proves a never- 

 failing attraction to the moth. 



Tlie Great Sea-serpent. — Being in the country of the renowned 

 Bishop Pontoppidan, and in the fjords which are generally claimed 

 as the home, or, at any rate, as one of the habitations of tire sea-ser- 

 pent, whose existence seems yet to be a disputed point in England, 

 I lost no opportunity of making inquiries of all I could see as to the 



