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The life-history of sea-trout is much the same as that of salmon, and the fish on their first return from the sea in the grilse-stage are called by many names, finnock, herling and whitling being perhaps the best known. Of the two races Salmo trutta alone is of much use to the fly-fisher. The bull-trout, for some obscure reason, is not at all responsive to his efforts, except in its kelt stage.
Salmo Salar seems to think nature is quite sufficient to take care of her own interests without our interference, and that without some counter-acting influence to keep the breed of fish in check, the river would not hold all that would be bred.
Salmo Salar says that the quantity of Salmon fry in the river is enormous; and that he has caught five pounds of them in a single pool in a single day. I have known three times that quantity caught in the same way. But still this proves nothing at all, for it is well known that almost all migratory animals, however solitary their general habits may be, are gregarious at the time of migration.
The French claim it; the Irish seem to claim it; the Messrs. Ashworth take great credit for it; and now Salmo Salar says he first suggested it. Allow me, as there are so many claimants in the field, to suggest one or two more.
Salmo Salar seems to think that almost all the ova deposited naturally come to life, and that very few of those deposited artificially do so. This, however, is quite contrary to my experience, and I think that if Salmo Salar will listen to the evidence he will change his opinion.
Eye remarkably brilliant. Good eating in the summer time, but far inferior to the SALMO SALAR. It congregates in vast shoals, and pursues the fry of other fishes in shallow bays, but never enters fresh-water. It is often taken of from seven to ten pounds weight. It affords excellent sport to the angler. The specimen was caught by the hook from my own door on the 4th May, 1841. No. 3.
Smelt was formerly applied to any small fish and comes, perhaps, from the Anglo-Saxon smeolt, which meant smooth the smoothness and slipperiness of the fish suggesting the name. Salmon comes directly from the Latin salmo, a salmon, which literally meant the leaper, from salire to leap.
Salmo Salar is facetious about the destruction of the roe by insects, and says, "because an aquatic insect will devour a minnow's egg, which is not as large as a pin's head, we have no right to infer that it will devour that of a Salmon, which is as large as a pea; it would be just as reasonable to suppose that because a wasp feasts upon a cherry, or a strawberry, therefore he will eat a turnip or a mangold wurtzel."
In the following observations I intend to offer some remarks on the various migratory fish of the genus Salmo; and then some facts and opinions which tend to show the importance of some change in the laws which are now in force regarding them. We have first the Salmon; which, in the Ribble, varies in weight from five to thirty pounds.
But there is another enemy whom Salmo Salar has not mentioned, who does more harm than all the rest: that is the poacher, and I fear that many of the Salmon which Salmo Salar saw spawning in the Hodder and its tributaries have since then made a journey overland. At all events, I am credibly informed that in one season a gang of poachers took seventy Salmon in the Hodder.
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