4980 Fishes. 



communication with the adjoining countries, salmon is seldom under 

 six shillings a pound. I distrust the promises of speculators ; with 

 them Nature has no laws that require being noticed. From the eco- 

 nomical, let me return to the physiological view, which must ever 

 form the basis of every operation which has a reference to the laws of 

 life, whether the question concerns salmon or men. 



On my return from Africa and the European Continent in 1822, one 

 of my earliest visits was to the rivers of South Scotland in which I had 

 angled when a boy : there 1, of course, found the fish called parr, as 1 

 had left it, equally mysterious — equally abundant — equally despised. 

 To solve the difficult questions which 1 knew were wrapped up in the 

 history of this little fish would have required me to reside on the banks 

 of a salmon-river, and this I could not do. When, in 1827 or 1828, 

 the Parliamentary Reports were published, I naturally expected that 

 some inquirers, favourably situated, and with leisure and means at their 

 command, would have endeavoured at least to solve, by direct obser- 

 vation, experiment or otherwise, some of the interesting physiological 

 questions involved in the salmon question ; but a careful perusal of all 

 the documents then published showed me that no such inquiry had 

 ever been attempted by any scientific person. To fill up the gap in 

 the natural history of the salmon was, therefore, my next aim, and I 

 selected a small trouting river, the Whitadder, as the field best adapted 

 for observation ; this method I chose in preference to that of experi- 

 ment, for reasons which I have already explained. The inquiry, com- 

 menced in 1826 or 1827, has extended from that period to the present 

 day : the young salmon in every stage of their development, from the 

 preserves or ponds in Perthshire, are now before me, thanks to the kind- 

 ness of my friend, Mr. Buist, from whom and from Dr. Esdaile I have 

 received the fullest information in respect of the great experiment now 

 in progress at Stormontfield. That experiment has already produced 

 singular results: like the Egyptian antiquities, the solution of one 

 difficulty has only led to the establishment of many more. A few 

 words will suffice to explain this to the readers of the ' Zoologist.' 



Prior to the commencement of my inquiries just alluded to, the food 

 of the grown salmon was not known : the period of the incubation of 

 the salmon-egg had been merely guessed at; the importance of the 

 Entomostraca, or microscopic shell-fish, as the sole, or nearly the sole 

 food of certain valuable fishes, as the herring, vendace, the finer lake 

 trouts and others, had never been even surmised ; but naturalists were 

 aware that salmon ascended the fresh-water streams in order to spawn ; 

 that the period for spawning was early in winter or late in autumn ; 



