SALMON. 
181 
have tendency to procure the defeat of a practise which must 
in a high degree be injurious. The class of persons who in 
that country are depredators on rivers, are in the habit of 
rendering the fish stupid, and the Salmon especially, by means 
of a plant which they gather and bruise by stamping on it 
near the bank; and thus simply prepared a small basketful is 
placed in the flowing stream, where it is found sufficient to 
infect the water and stupify the fish to the extent of several 
miles. The poisoned fish rise to the surface, and may be taken 
with the hand; but they are not at all the less fit for food. 
I learn from Sir W. J. Hooker’s “British Flora,” vol. i, that 
this plant IS Euphorhia Hiberna, which grows to the height of 
two feet, and produces flowers in June; but those who may 
msh to prevent injury to rivers from this cause, may easily 
obtain their object by preventing its growth. 
Everywhere the Salmon is a prolific fish, but the quantity 
ot roe IS prone to vary according to the age and bulk; and 
some observers have gone so far as to assign a certain weight 
of one in proportion to the other; each pound of fish implying 
a thousand in number of the grains of spawn, a number which 
probably is much below the mark. Willoughby says that the 
Salmon requires sk years to attain its full growth, and at the 
Elver Kibble, which he particularly mentions, the successive 
yearly stages were so well marked, that at each season it 
received the separate names of Smelt, (or Smolt,) Sprod, Mort, 
Forktail, Half-fisli, and Salmon; but some supposed that in 
three years they reached their full extent of size. It is probable 
they are capable of increase of bulk long after this, although 
m some rivers more than in others; but in our own country 
there are few so fortunate as to escape for several years the 
various snares that are set for them, and from this cause the 
roe must be proportionally less in quantity than formerly, even 
irom the same number of fish. 
In what is properly the natural history of the Salmon, as 
of two or three others of this family, there are to be noticed 
some curious vacations of instinct and power, by which actions 
Of an opposite kind are brought alternately into exercise. Thus 
at the earliest stage of its existence it would die if immersed 
in ..a. t-watei, but soon afterwards it is impelled to go to the 
sea, in which it grows rapidly; but however congenial this may 
