55G 
THE OCEAN WOULD. 
the fish betake themselves in bands to the sea. The sea feeding being 
favourable, and the fish strong enough for the salt water, a rapid 
growth is the consequence. Arrived at the spot where the tide stops, 
they stop a few days in the brackish water, as if to accustom them- 
selves to the new element. After that they disappear, spreading 
themselves over the wide world of the ocean. At the end of two 
months of a life mysterious and so far unknown, these fishes reappear 
in the rivers, returning to their native pools; but how changed! 
Quantum rnutati! The smolt, which has lived in the river two or 
three years, and only attained the length of six or eight inches, returns 
at the end of a two months’ sojourn in the sea, weighing three to four 
pounds. It is now a grilse. 
After depositing their eggs the grilse remain some time in the 
fresh water, when they again go to the sea. This second sojourn, of 
about two months, is sufficient to send it back weighing from six to 
twelve pounds. It is now an adult salmon. Each new visit to the 
sea brings the salmon back increased in size in proportion to the 
duration of the voyage. In the month of March, 1845, the Duke of 
Athole took a salmon in the Tay after it had deposited its eggs ; he 
marked it by attaching a metal label to it. It weighed ten pounds. 
The same individual with its metal label was again fished up after five 
weeks and three days’ absence. It now weighed twenty-one pounds, 
having in the meantime travelled forty miles down the river to the sea. 
In most circumstances, according to Mr. Blanchard, to whom we 
are indebted for much information relative to the development and 
migration of these fishes, salmon of various ages, which have neverthe- 
less sojourned in the sea as grilse, adult salmon, and others inter- 
mediate between them, whose first sojourn at sea has extended to eight 
or ten months, ascend the rivers together in an order no less varied, 
the older individuals heading the column, the youngest bringing up the 
rear. 
When the period for depositing their eggs approaches, a male and 
female pair off, as it were ; seeming to choose, by a common accord, the 
place intended to receive the egg. Here both male and female employ 
themselves in hollowing out a nest in the strand, some eight or nine 
inches deep, wherein the female deposits her eggs, which the male 
fertilizes by shedding a milky fluid over them, sheltering the eggs 
afterwards by a covering of sand. 
