SALMON. 
197 
Ihe Salar is sufficiently distinguished by being named separately, 
Purpiireisque Salar stellatus tergore guttes. 
With purple spots his back is sprinkled o’er 
In Starlike forms. 
There is little added to this meagre account by Sidonius, 
when he terms these fishes “rapacissiime Salares” — the very 
ravenous Salars; but naturalists are in error, although our 
illustrious and generally accurate countryman Ray is of the 
number, (in his “Dictionarium Trilingue,”) when they judge 
the Salar to be the Common Trout. This last is distinguished 
by Ausonius under the name of Fario: — 
Ambiguus, 
Amborum medio, Fario intercepte sirbaavo. 
Fario, a doubtful kind. 
Between the two, as stopped in middle age. 
It is probable that either the Sea Trout or the Peal is 
the Salar of the poet, and we know that the word Fario 
is derived from a source which is neither Latin nor Greek; 
but it is the name of the Trout to the present day, and 
probably was the provincial name of the same fish in the 
country of Ausonius. When he calls it ambiguous, it should 
not be understood as of a more doubtful species than the 
others, but as forming a natural link of affinity between 
them: on which subject the ancients held opinions long since 
given over to oblivion; for it was commonly believed that in 
all cases where creatures of apparently similar races bore some 
near resemblance, their likeness was produced by a mingling 
of the breeds, a kind of natural selection, the supposition of 
which is of no modern date. We believe that a figure of the 
Salmon will be found stamped on some Samian or ancient 
Roman pottery, as represented in the “Intellectual Observer” 
for November, 1864, where even the young is shewn with 
the bag of the egg attached to the throat; no small proof that 
theie were some in remote times who studied these things. 
ihe weight of the Salmon was formerly much greater with 
us than w'e are likely to see it again, at least while means 
are 
