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instance the words of the witnesses, we shall refer to the number of the page of the Report. It would have been more convenient had the questions, with the answers, been numbered, as the references could have been made with greater distinctness.

HABITS OF THE FISH.

In the course of the examinations which are here recorded, the Committee seem to have been anxious to determine the different species of fish usually found in the salmon rivers, or captured in the nets. This is an object of considerable importance, with the view of regulating the size of the meshes of the nets.

I. SALMON.All the witnesscs are of the same opinion with regard to this species; but they differ greatly as to this question, "Whether the salmon of one river can be distinguished from those of another by any definite characters." Mr Halliday has "compared them in Ireland, England, and Scotland, many times," and says, "I cannot make out the distinction of one river's fish from that of another;" p. 87. Mr James Bell states, "I have a little guess; not altogether;" p. 22. J. Proudfoot considers the Tweed fish as smaller than those of the Tay, and those of the River Isla as smaller than those of the River Tay; but, when asked if upon meeting with an Isla fish and a Tay fish in the frith, he would know the one from the other, he replies, "No; I would not ;" p. 25. On the other side of the question, Mr James Wilson, in reference to the North and South Esks at Montrose, declares, that "the species of salmon is quite different in these two rivers;" and adds, "One is a large coarse scaly fish, and the other is a smaller and a finer fish;" p. 14. Mr James Bell states, that the "Aberdeen fish is quite different from the Tay, different in the scale ;" p. 28. Geo. Little, Esq. states, that the sal

mon in the Shannon " grow to a large size," and adds, "We have three fishings that fall all into one bay in Ire land, the Bush, the Bann, and the Foyle, and we can easily distinguish the fish of all the different rivers when we take them. The salmon in the Bush is a long-bodied round salmon, nearly as thick at the head as he is at the middle. The salmon that we kill at the Bann, is what I call a very neatmade fish, very broad at the shoulders, and the back fin tapering away towards the tail, and quite a different shaped fish from the Bush fish. The Foyle is a river that we seldom get any large salmon in ;" p. 112.

A considerable degree of importance seems to be attached to this branch of the inquiry, with the view of determining the question, Whether the fish bred in a particular river always return to their birth-place, and to no other river. Sir Humphry Davy assumes that "salmon, and salmon-trout, belong, in fact, to the river in which they were spawned," and that "each variety of salmon or salmon-trout affects a particular river, and always returns to it ;" p. 145. The other witnesses seem generally to entertain the same opinion. Mr Little has been told of evidence on this subject, p. 112; but no facts are communicated. Indeed, Mr Halliday asserts, that "they do not all come to the same river in which they were bred ;" and as a proof of this, he states, "I found the different rivers vary from one year to another; but when one is protected and another unprotected, the unprotected river keeps up its quantity as well as the protected one" p. 87. Judging from analogy, we should consider it probable, that, in the absence of deranging circumstances, the fish bred in a river would generally return to it; but not a few, under the influence of those feelings on which depend the peopling of the globe, would wander into other ri

vers. And when we consider the persecutions from seals, grampuses, and sharks, to which salmon are exposed in the sea, in connexion with their social or gregarious disposition, it is impossible to avoid drawing the inference, that the tribes belonging to different rivers must be frequently dispersed and mixed, and have their future movements controlled by other circumstances than the localities of their birth. In point of fact, salmon, so far from belonging to the rivers in which they were bred, belong to the sea, the place of their ordinary residence, where they grow and feed. The ordinary laws of citizenship, therefore, are not applicable to salmon.

II. GRILSE.-Sir H. Davy and Mr John Wilson consider this fish as a young salmon; other witnesses, as Messrs Little, Johnstone, and Halliday, entertain a different opinion, viewing it as a distinct species. They found this opinion of its claim to rank as a species, on the circumstances of its being found full of milt or of roe, and of its spawning and return to the sea as a kelt or spawned fish. But fish spawn long before they attain maturity; consequently, this test is of little value. But other proofs are offered. Mr Johnstone says, "The grilse is a much less fish in general; it is much smaller at the tail in proportion, and it has a much more swallow tail, much more forked it is smaller at the head, sharper at the point of the nose, and generally the grilse is more bright in the scales than the salmon;" p. 38. Mr Halliday states, that "a grilse's tail is very much forked, like that of a swallow; a salmon's tail is not forked like that of a grilse, and the chowk fins (pectorals) of a grilse are much more blue in their colour than a salmon's; a grilse is much smaller at the head and immediately above the tail than a salmon is; it seems to be a different fish in shape every way; besides, it

goes up full of spawn in the end of the year, and does not come down till the spring, when it is a kelt grilse, while the young salmon are coming up the rivers in numbers of at least fifty young salmon for every kelt grilse that returns to the sea;" p. 63. Mr Little, who entertains a similar opinion to the two preceding witnesses, states, that grilses enter rivers in June, seldom in May, p. 112, (confirmed by Mr Halliday, p. 53,) and adds, "We do not find in some rivers the same proportion of grilses as salmon as we do in others; for instance, at our fishing at the Foyle, it consists almost entirely of grilse;" p. 110. When they first appear in the rivers, they are from 1 to 3 lb. in weight, "and they increase gradually every week during the time we kill them." At the end of the season, they weigh "8, 9, or 10 lb." He likewise states, "Our water keepers tell me that they very seldom see a salmon and grilse breeding together, but they have seen it occasionally, but not generally-very seldom ;" p. 113. There can be little doubt, that the term Grilse is used in general to denote a young salmon, though the same epithet is probably bestowed upon a distinct species of the genus Salmo, with which it seems to be confounded.

III. TROUT.-Sir H. Davy considers Salmon-peal, Sewen, and Bulltrout, as constituting one species, the Salmo Eriox of Linnæus, the most correct appellation of which is Sea-trout. The Salmo Trutta of Linnæus, however, has been universally regarded by British systematical writers as the common Sea-trout; and the Salmo Eriox is a very different species. The term Erior, as first employed by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth, and by Cuba in the fifteenth century, was considered by Artedi as referring to the common salmon! Linnæus afterwards employed the term as a trivial name to the " S. maculis cinereis, cauda ex◄

tremo æquali" of Artedi, and the Gray of Willoughby and Ray. De Lasepede continues the term in its Linnæan sense; and, we may add, for the information of the learned chemist, that S. Trutta and S. Eriox are both well characterised species and natives of Great Britain. Let him count the rays of the gill-flap if he doubts. Mr Johnston says, 66 Although in some friths and rivers, where there are a great many salmon, there are also great numbers of trout; yet in others, where there are a great many salmon, there are very few trout;" p. 38. Mr Halliday states, "In the Annan I have known us get more sea-trouts in one day, than we shall get in the Tay in a whole year;" p. 64. Mr Little declares," that the sea-trout are not found in all salmon rivers. We do not see anything like the Spey-trout, or like the trout that is caught in the Solway Frith, or like the trout that is caught in the Tweed, in any of our fishings in Ireland. They do not breed, nor are they to be seen there;" p. 111. Sir H. Davy states, that "the different habits of the salmon and sea-trout are well demonstrated in the Moy, near Ballena in Ireland," on which there is a large pile near the town, and which, below the fall, is joined by a consider able stream. "The salmon leap this fall; the sea-trout almost all spawn in the smaller stream, a few miles from the sea;" p. 144. There is some strange blunder here. Mr Little, the tenant of the fishings on the Moy, says, there are trout, "but not the trout called the Sea-trout;" and with regard to the pile or fall which ob structs the progress of the trout, and over which the salmon leap, he adds, "They can go over it at tide-time, without leaping: after the tide rises, they can go over it;" p. 134. He likewise observes, "A trout goes very far up the river to spawn." "The smaller the fish is, they go the higher

up into the little streams to deposit the spawn; but the trout in the Moy are quite a different kind of trout from what we call in Scotland the salmon or sea-trout;" p. 134.

IV. WHITLING.-Sir H. Davy considers this fish as a young salmon, and states, that they are "without visible ova or spermatic secretion; are found in salmon rivers, a mile or two from the sea, and which return to the sea, without attempting a farther migration;" p. 145. Mr Little, who knows this fish by different names in different rivers, as hirlings, whiteings, or finnocks, declares, "We never see such a fish in Ireland, in the rivers we are concerned with. In the rivers that run into the Solway Frith and in the Tweed, and in some other rivers, they are found; but in a great number of rivers they are not. They are only found in those rivers where they breed. There are a few in the river Tay, shaped, and headed, and tailed like a salmon. They are from 12 to 15 inches in length. Some of them will cut up red, but they are mostly white. We frequently do not find them in rivers where salmon are; there are many vers where there are salmon, where no such fish are known; we see them go. ing down kelt in the same way as we see a large salmon going down after spawning" p. 110. Mr Halliday states, "that in Carlisle they call them whitings; in Annan hirlings; and in the north finnocks. I never saw any in the Tay; but I have taken 100 dozen in the Annan at one draught. It is about 12 inches long. The tail of the hirling is straighter than that of the salmon or grilse, and it is quite a short-headed fish; neither does the head of the hirling shoot like that of the salmon when he is going to spawn, The largest I ever saw was about ths of a pound. My reasons for believing that they are not the young salmon, are, that when they go up the ri

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vers, they are as full of spawn for their size as the salmon is; and when they come down in the spring of the year kelts, we are getting the young salmon;" p. 63. Mr Johnstone agrees with the preceding witnesses, in as serting the ordinary presence of ova and spermatic secretion, and in considering this fish as a distinct species. "They are called hirlings on the Scotch side of the Solway; whitings on the English side; hirlings, whitings, or whitlings, at Berwick; whitelings in the Tay; and finnocks in the north of Scotland;" p. 37.

V. PAR.-Mr Little is the only witness who is questioned in reference to this fish. "I have seen them; but I consider them merely a fresh-water fish, or a species of fish by themselves, unconnected with our salmon-fisheries altogether;" p. 113.

It is probable, that some species of migratory trouts have not been noticed at all. The river fishers are better acquainted with the trouts than the frith fishers. But we return to the HABITS OF THE SALMON, as furnishing materials for regulating the legislative enactments of this kingdom.

Before entering upon this branch of the subject, it may be proper to state, that the present legal time for begin ning the salmon-fishing varies in different rivers, from the 10th December (in the Tay) to the 12th March (in the Solway;) and that the fishing-season legally ends, according to the rivers, from the 12th August (Ireland generally) to the 4th December (in the Teign.) How far these terms are suitable or improper, will presently appear.

In the more important actions of the salmon, viz. migration and spawning, there is a season during which these are executed by the greatest number of individuals, occupying, however, a range of some months. But there are individuals, executing these operations

irregularly, at other periods. Mr Little says, "There are some rivers in which you will get some good salmon all the year round;" p. 114. In the spring months, few fish enter rivers; they rapidly increase in numbers as the summer advances; and in autumn, again, they begin to decrease, leaving the winter months, as to the ascending migration, to constitute a dead season.

The condition of rivers in the spring influences the movements of the salmon. J. Proudfoot states, that, “in the spring of the year, the fish always occupy the north side of the Tay (i. e. the sunny side of the river.) The north side fishing kills far more fish than the south side;" p. 28. Mr Little states, that, in "the river Shannon, the salmon fishery is nearly over by the middle of May," p. 114; and that he does "not get many fish in the Foyle of any kind till the end of May;" p. 112. When the great differences existing between different rivers, in the quantity, temperature, and contents of their waters, are duly considered, we need not wonder at the inAuence these circumstances may exert on the motions of salmon; but if we make a difference in the close season between one river and another, we must, with equal propriety, establish a similar distinction between the south side and the north side of every river.

In rivers, during the early spring months, the fisheries are seldom productive: even Lord Gray's fishings on the sunny side of the Tay, according to J. Gillies, " taking the average from the 10th December till the end of January, will not, one season with another, pay the expenses, or little more. There are some very good fishings in the month of February; perhaps in the month of February there will be ten days of those fishings, and scarcely take one fish." The same witness adds, in reference to the kind of fish taken

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at those periods in the Tay: will get ten foul fish till the middle of February for one clean one ;" p. 139. As the season advances, the salmon appear in the shores, in the estuaries, and enter rivers in greater numbers. The stake-nets, in such places, according to Mr Halliday, "are seldom productive but in May, June, and July," p. 68. "The fishings fall materially off about the middle of August, and to the end of it ;" p. 69 and 84. "In September they catch almost nothing;" p. 84. These conditions vary much with the season. The salmon are most abundant in dry seasons on the shore, and in estuaries. In rivers, they abound most in wet seasons. Mr Halliday, on this subject, offers some very pertinent remarks: "Because the stake-nets take the salmon at that season of the year when they would not go into the rivers; the rivers are not in a state to receive them, they become so heated: the rivers likewise become so very small, and the water gets so hot at that season of the year, when salmon is most plentiful on the coasts of Scotland, that they will not enter the rivers, the rivers being then not in a fit state to receive them; it is by the stake-nets that the fish at that season of the year can be taken in the greatest quantity; it is at that time, too, that they are in the greatest perfection; very few would be taken except by the stake-nets; and if they were not so taken, they would generally be lost altogether; a great part of these fish that the stake-nets do take, are taken going out to sea; even in the friths and estuaries, the fish do not go far up in the warm months. In the course of my practice in the Tay, I have carefully observed the upper stake-nets in comparison with the lower: when the seasons were dry, the upper stake-nets took very few fish in comparison at a particular time of the year in one season, when the scason

was very dry and warm, the fish in the neap-tides did not even approach the highest stake-net, namely, Seaside and Birkhill; when the spring-tides became high, the fish came up to these nets, and were taken; but when the tide fell off again, the nets on the lower parts of the frith, on Mr Dalgleish and Mr Maule's properties, caught a great deal more fish at that particular time of the tide, when the fish did not float up so high as the upper stakenets;" p. 72. In conformity with this statement, J. Proudfoot declares, that, "in rainy seasons, in heavy speats, the upper fisheries (in the river) give more fish in proportion when the river is high than when it is little ;" p. 26.

The fish which enter rivers in the spring and summer months, have roe, but in May, for example, it is very small. As the season advances, the roe and melt are found in a riper state, until the time of spawning; but in these respects there are individual differences. Now, since salmon enter rivers months before they be ready for spawning, Do they remain in the river until that period, or do they occasionally return to the sea? On this subject the Committee seem to have be-' stowed considerable attention. The opinions of the witnesses, however, are at variance. In reference to the fish on the shore and in estuaries, Mr Wilson declares, "I believe they all those rivers; they are upon the shore, and get up the river if they can ;" p. 14. Several of the other witnesses give it as their opinion, that salmon, before the spawning season, enter the rivers, and return again to the sea, influenced by very different instincts from those of spawning. The following proofs are offered:

1. It is asserted that salmon remaining a short time in fresh-water, become weak, and return to the sea to be recruited, It is stated by some of

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