241 
of Edinburgh, Session 1878 - 79 . 
have injected and preserved the stomach and pyloric caeca of this 
fish as examples of those organs in a high conditioned fish. It was 
cooked, and several gentlemen who partook of it pronounced it 
excellent. 
By the kind attention of James Tait, Esq., of Kelso, I received a 
common river-trout and a minnow, both of which were captured 
near Kelso Bridge in Tweed river ; both specimens were affected with 
fungus — the Saprolegnici ferax. I may here mention that I have 
noticed several able letters which have appeared in the Scotsman 
newspaper from time to time, in which the writer states that the 
fungus is only a secondary attack, and that a primary disease of an 
inflammatory kind first affects the head and other parts of the 
salmon before the fungus can settle upon it. I do not for an 
instant doubt the fact that the writer saw fish with sores of the 
kind described by him upon them, when there was no fungus pre- 
sent to cause them. I can only say that, among all the fish which 
I have received for examination, consisting of salmon, sea-trout, 
smolts, common trout, greyling, and minnows, I have not seen one 
with a sore on which this fungus was not present; while on 
every fish examined there were some patches of fungus which 
could easily be wiped off, leaving only a slight stain, and in some 
instances no mark could be discerned, and no loosening and shed- 
ding of the scales or ulceration of the subjacent surface. Again, 
in every instance where the fungus was rank, long-seated, and 
felted, sores in every degree, from slight abrasion to sloughing, were 
found under them. With reference to the trout and the minnow 
before mentioned, the trout had fungus seated upon the gums of 
both the upper and lower jaws, which involved both the teeth and 
lips, and had spread upward and backward upon the head, and its 
destructive progress could be easily traced : first, the skin of the 
lips was broken in several places, and shreds of it were hanging 
loose, to which the fungus was adhering ; while, as it spread back- 
ward over the nostrils and crown of the head, the skin and its 
pigment spots could still be seen intact where the fungus was 
seated, a portion of which had been carefully shed aside to expose 
the skin. On each of the pectoral fins a patch of young fungus 
was seated, and the mucous coat was seen through the fungus to be 
quite entire ; the same appearance was seen upon the anal fin and 
