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Among the witnesses whose evidence is thus characterised, are Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Henry Fane, Viscount Forbes, Mr Spring Rice Sir George Rose, Mr Home Drummond, George Hogarth, jun., William Stephen, George Little, John Halliday, Murdoch Mackenzie,-and our most respectable and learned associates, the Rev. Dr Fleming, and James Jardine; besides numerous other educated and respectable men, many of whom had spent the best part of their lives in the daily observation of the fisheries of salmon, in different parts of the United Kingdom.-The names of these individuals were warrant to the public that they were competent to form a rational conjecture; their sources of information, that they were capable of giving direct evidence; and their education and rank in life were warrant for their possessing at least some knowledge of the nature of testimony. And when, on the other hand, it is considered that what is termed the natural history of the salmon in this memoir, is rested on a single experiment, made in a hurried visit to a salmon river-and the nature of the food at all seasons and in all places peremptorily determined, from cutting up one or two stomachs at one period of the year, and at one station, it would not be difficult for the least versant in the nature of testimony to say on which side the incompetency was likely to be found.

Having made these preliminary remarks, I now proceed to show, from these much abused "Minutes of Evidence," and other sources, that the claims of the author of the memoir as a discoverer, rest merely on his own assertions; and that the main points upon which he claims merit were just as well known before the appearance of his memoir as since that period. In this case, however, I shall not detain the society with many quotations from writers on natural history as to the food of the salmon, either when in the sea or when found in rivers. The evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons narrows the enquiry as to this point; and I shall therefore avail myself of this evidence to corroborate what had been previously stated on the subject.

Professor Rennie, of the King's College, London, it has been stated,

found nothing in the stomach of the salmon but a "yellow fluid ;" and Dr Knox asserts that this opinion must be "quite peculiar to Professor Rennie, as he knew of no author in which such a fact is mentioned." But this fact is not peculiar to the learned professor, notwithstanding Dr Knox's assertion that it is so; for it is repeatedly men tioned in Sir Humphry Davy's work, entitled Salmonia, published a year before Professor Rennie's Walton appeared. And stranger still, this book is quoted, and a passage from the very page in which the "yellow fluid" is mentioned, animadverted on by Dr Knox. The following is the passage:"The stomach of the salmon, you perceive, contains nothing but a little yellow fluid; and though the salmon is twice as large, does not exceed much in size that of the trout.”— (P. 129--And again, in the following page "I have opened ten or twelve, and never found any thing in their stomachs but tape-worms, bred there, and some yellow fluid; but I believe this is generally owing to their being caught at the time of their migration, when they are travelling from the sea upwards, and do not willingly load themselves with food. Their digestion appears to be very quick."-(Salmonia, p. 130.) In corroboration of Sir Humphry Davy's remark as to less food being found in the stomach of the salmon at the period of its annual migration, I may mention, that more than one naturalist has noticed the fact, that as the generative organs increase much, there seems less disposition in fishes to feed, and that their stomach in such cases is generally found empty, or nearly so. John Monipennie, also, in his description of Scotland, published in 1612, mentions what I have no doubt was a fluid of the same nature, though he does not mention its colour; for, says he, "Finally, there is no man that knoweth readily whereon this fish liveth, for never was any thing yet found in their bellies, other than a thick slimy humour.”

According to Bloch, (v. 245), "the salmon feeds on little fishes, insects, and worms." According to Lacepede, it "lives on insects, worms, and the fry of fishes." (Hist. Nat. des Poissons, xii. 185.) According to Bose, "it is upon insects, worms, and small fishes, that it feeds." (Nouv. Dict. xxx. 251.) Hyppolyte Cloquet

the friths, where sand-eels are used as a bait. A line is attached to a buoy, or bladder, and allowed to float with the tide up the narrow estuaries. The salmon are also said to be occasionally taken at the lines set for haddocks, baited with sand-eels. At the mouths of rivers they will rise freely at the artificial fly within fifty yards of the sea; and the common earth-worm is a deadly bait for the clean salmon. All the other marine salmon are known to be very voracious; and there is nothing in the structure of the mouth or strong teeth of the common salmon to warrant us to suppose that there is any material difference in their food.'" (Vol. ii., p. 19.) "Several observers,' adds Mr Yarrell, "have borne testimony to the partiality of the salmon to the sand-launce as food, and I have a record, by an angler, of salmon caught in the Wye by a minnow.”—(P. 19.)

states that it feeds upon worms, insects, and small fishes; and in Turton's translation of Gmelin's edition of the Systema Naturæ, the salmon is said to "feed on fishes, worms, and insects." "It is evident," says Pennant, "that at times their food is both fish and worms; for the angler uses both with good success; as well as a large gaudy artificial fly, which probably the fish mistakes for a gay Libellula, or dragon-fly." (Brit. Zool. iii. 387); and Dr Fleming states that "their favourite food in the sea is the sand-eel." (Brit. Animals, 179.) Dr Fleming's means of knowledge I may, in passing, remark, were a residence of, I believe, fifteen years within sight of extensive salmon-fisheries on the Frith of Tay, and an extensive and minute acquaintance with all the branches of British Zoology. And it may be a sufficient answer to the contemptuous allusions by Dr Knox to that deservedly eminent individual, to say that his writings are. So much for the statements of sysreferred to as authoritative by almost tematic writers as to the food of the every author who treats of the subjects salmon. I shall now give some exwhich have been illustrated by his pen. tracts from the papers in the second volume of the Highland Society Transactions, regarding the salmon fisheries of Scotland, as to the food of the salmon. In fresh water, according to Dr Walker, "little is found in the stomach except slime, or some half-digested, and some half-entire insects."-" It is probable that they receive, in the sea, a more copious food, and of a different kind; but the precise nature of this food is unknown," i. e. to Dr Walker. (P. 364 )

It is necessary again to mention, that by insects, in these passages, is meant the class of animals included under that name by Linnæus, which extended to all annulose animals; and the whole modern class Crustacea, including minute crabs, shrimps, &c., as well as the divisions of Enchinodermata and Entomostraca. By worms is also meant the class Vermes of Linnæus, which included not only the naked but testaceous Mollusca; and it is in reference to these extended classes that the terms used by the writers of the period are to be understood.

Later writers confirm the observations of the older authors as to the food of the salmon. Thus Mr Yarrell, in his History of British Fishes, published in 1835, has the following passage relative to the food of this fish"Faber, in his Natural History of the Fishes of Iceland, remarks, the common salmon feeds on small fishes and various small marine animals.' Dr Fleming says,Their favourite food in the sea is the sand-eel ;' and I myself," says Mr Yarrell, "have taken the remains of sand-launce from the stomach. Sir William Jardine says," continues Mr Yarrell, "In the north of Sutherland a mode of fishing for salmon is sometimes successfully practised in

Mr John Mackenzie says, "It is probable they live on the fry, or young of other fishes. It is well known that when in fresh water, they feed on animalcules, flies, small trouts, &c." (P. 384.)

"I

Mr Alexander Morrison says, have taken salmon within flood-mark, some of which had two, and others three full-sized herrings in their stomach. When salmon enter rivers, where but a small quantity of the fry of fish (on which they usually feed) is to be found, they evidently become worse in the course of twenty-four hours. From this it may be inferred, that salmon not only require a considerable quantity of food, but that their stomachs dissolve it in a very short period." (P. 392.)

Mr Archibald Drummond, after stating that when in the river they eat every thing with voracity, notices the

common saying of the fishermen, that nothing is ever found in their stomach.

In these papers there is only one fact stated, on the personal knowledge of one of the writers, Mr Morrison, who has himself taken from their sto. machs full-sized herrings. The others only state their conjectures, or opinions. None of them refer to previous writers, either British or foreign, on the natural history of the salmon.

the salmon's food. But Mr Moir is not singular in his opinion; for the Rev. Dr Fleming asserts the same fact from his own knowledge; and on the evidence of these two gentlemen alone, the fact of the salmon feeding much on sand-eels might at once be admitted.

Dr Knox is equally virulent against another person, whom he does not name, for asserting what was consistent with his own knowledge, that he had seen small fishes in the stomachs of the thousands of salmon opened in the boiling-house. He alludes, I presume, to Mr Halliday, in these terms:

I now turn to the minutes of evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, for facts upon the subject of the food of the salmon. In the Report of 1824, John Halliday" One practical fisher and tacksgives his evidence as to their food in these words:-"I have had thousands of them dissected, when I have seen small fish in their stomachs. I have seen thousands of fish opened in the boilinghouse, and I have seen small things like a worm, and skeddens, in the stomach of the salmon, or a small fish like a minnow."-(P. 90.) "I have observed more of this worm and small sea-fish in those fish we get from particular parts of the sea-shore."-ib.

Mr Moir states the chief food of the salmon to be sand-eels. "As all the fish were cut up," says he, "for the purpose of being preserved in a fresh state, I had an opportunity of examining their stomachs. I never could detect food of any kind in the stomachs of salmon taken in the upper riverfishings; whereas those taken in the sea were frequently gorged with food, which was principally sand-eels." "I strongly suspect that the salmon frequent the flat sands between the Don and Ythan for the purpose of feeding;" and "a very successful stake-net fishery is carried on, on the sands at Musselburgh, and another at Aberlady. These sands abound with sand-eels. The one station is thirty, the other forty miles from a spawning river."(Report, 1825, p. 171, 172.)

This last gentleman is, I conceive (for Dr Knox very prudently does not mention his name), the person whom he accuses of making the statement I have read," in open defiance of truth and daily observation," when he averred, on his own knowledge, that the sand-eel formed a principal part of

But

man of salmon fisheries of vast extent,
was so ignorant of every fact in na-
tural history, that he mistook the tape-
worm (a parasite infesting certain
parts of the intestinal tube of the sal-
mon) for the food of the salmon." (P.
499.) The inference Dr Knox wishes
to be drawn from this circumstance
(granting, for the sake of argument,
that it is as he states it), is, that Mr
Halliday's evidence as to food is good
for nothing, because he saw, without
knowing it was so, a tape-worm
amongst the small fishes in the sto-
machs of the salmon opened.
this is neither fair to Mr Halliday nor
right in itself. There can be no doubt
of the fact of fishes, and a worm, being
found in the stomachs alluded to, for
it is a common occurrence; and Mr
Halliday may be quite right as to the
plain matter of fact, when he states
what he had seen, while his opinion
as to this fact or the nature of the sub-
stances, may be disregarded. But no
one can mistake Mr Halliday's des-
cription of the worm alluded to, who
had ever seen one. He describes it
as like a "crimped straw." If this
rule were applied generally to Dr
Knox's own paper, there would be
found, I am afraid, evidence of deficient
information sufficient to discredit the
whole of his statements.

In ordinary cases, where an observer states a fact as coming under his own observation, any opinion he may form upon that fact is a separate thing from the fact itself, and does not necessarily detract from its truth. Others, better informed, may draw a

The specimen, No. 3, now on the table, contains the vertebral remains of some small fishes. The same specimen contains in its intestinal canal the tape-worm which is usually found there.

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXIV.

N

At

completely opposite inference from the
same premises. Suppose, for instance,
(and I state the incident as it was re-
lated in the Courant newspaper, a few
years ago), a large trout to be caught
in the Canal, in a nearly exhausted
state, with a frog mounted upon its
back, and that the said trout was in-
jured in the neck, opposite the frog's
mouth,-might not the learned doctor,
like the narrator of the circumstance
in the newspaper, very naturally sup-
pose that the frog was in the act of
devouring the trout? And, supposing
the breed of frogs to be of national im-
portance, and their food a grave mat-
ter of philosophical enquiry, would
not this fact be considered as incon-
testable proof of the nature of their
aliment, however different from the
frog's habits, and direct evidence that
the reptile had taken at least one
mouthful? The fact of the frog on the
back of the trout, and clasping it with
its arms, is of undoubted occurrence-
the reason assigned is mere matter of
opinion, and in this case would be per-
fectly erroneous. To those acquainted
with the natural history of the frog the
solution is apparent, without invol
ving the crime of trout-murder.
the usual period of the year, the in-
stinct of reproduction in these animals
is strong, and, failing females of their
own class, the male frog frequently
sits the usual time upon the back of a
fish. (See Blumenbach and Spallan-
zani.) I have heard of ponds in Eng-
land being nearly cleared of trout
from this cause, where frogs abounded;
the trout being literally ridden to
death by these amphibious equestrians.
Now, the natural conclusion of one
ignorant of the habits of the animal,
on such an occurrence coming under
his notice, would be that the frogs had
seized upon the trouts for the pur-
pose of devouring them; and one
more imaginative might naturally
enough conclude that imps in the
shape of frogs were running sweep-
stakes in a submerged racing-course.
It need not be said how far from truth
these inferences would be; but such is
the mode in which the author of the
paper before us treats the evidence
given by professional fishers, and
others, before a Committee of Parlia-
ment. If they err in opinion, their
evidence as to facts coming under their
express cognisance is not to be be-
lieved.

Mr Alexander Fraser, a salmon

curer, who published a Natural His-
tory of the Salmon in 1830, is attacked
in the same manner; and his state-
ments, founded on experience, are
treated with disrespect, and as not to
be believed, because he counted only
54 vertebræ in the backbone of the
salmon, when, according to Dr Knox,
there are really 61.
"Thus," says
the Doctor, "an experience of forty
or fifty years as a salmon-curer and
catcher has not enabled him to count
the backbones correctly.”—(P. 501.)
And again, because Mr Fraser has
omitted to mention the "internal pa-
rasitical animals," "I confess," says
Dr Knox, "this excites strong doubts
in my mind as to the accuracy of Mr
Fraser's observations generally, and
causes me to undervalue altogether his
forty years' experience as a salmon-
curer."—(P. 502.) And again, “ Mr
Fraser has a mind capable of rising
above all prejudices in the support of
truth."-(P. 502.)

Now, if to be able to count the number of vertebræ in the backbone of a salmon correctly be the rule of judging of the credibility of testimony in other matters, what shall be said of Dr Knox, if his enumeration be not itself correct? Mr Yarrell, whose knowledge of fishes, internally as well as externally, requires no praise of mine, makes the number of vertebræ in the salmon sixty and so does the Rev. Mr Jenyns, in his accurate work on the British Vertebrate Animals. "Aecording to Dr Richardson" (says Mr Yarrell), "the coccal appendages are in number from 63 to 68; and several observers have stated the number of vertebræ to be sixty, which I have repeatedly found to be correct."— British Fishes, ii. 6.

But Mr Fraser, it seems, has given other and greater offence in speaking of the salmon's food. "In respect to the food of the salmon" (says Dr Knox), "Mr Fraser has notions also perfectly local; that is, confined to himself. And as the whole passage admits of no sort of analysis, and as, indeed, no person having the smallest knowledge of natural objects would think it necessary to read the article twice, much less to examine it seriously, we shall simply quote his own words, and then leave it: Their digestion is so quick, that in a few hours not a bone is to be discovered. Of this I have had various proofs, in trouts caught by a par as a bait in set

lines.

Fire or water could not consume them quicker.""-(P. 501.) Sir Humphry Davy shares in the contemptuous reprehension implied in the introduction to this paragraph; for he says, "their digestion appears to be very quick"-(Salmonia, p. 130); and other writers corroborate the obser. vation.

As to the food of the salmon, then, it appears clearly that this food, both in rivers and in the sea, was well known, and recorded by almost all writers on the natural history of fishes, long before the observations of Dr Knox appeared. That food is, gene, rally speaking, worms, insects, and small fishes; the first term including the Echinodermata of modern writers, and the second the modern class Crustacea. The author's criticism on Dr Fleming saying that salmon go "into estuaries in search of worms and other bait," is almost unworthy of notice. Worms may mean only earth-worms in the vocabulary of Dr Knox, though the use of the word in the plural number might have suggested to a person so learned, that there might be marineworms as well as earth-worms in the estuary alluded to. But in point of fact, one of the stomachs now on the table, confirms even the verbal accuracy of Dr Fleming, had he even meant, as is sneeringly imputed to him, merely earth-worms-for there is actually an earth-worm in that stomach, washed down probably from the banks of the river by the receding tide. The evidence of practical fishermen and others fully establishes, what previous writers had asserted, that small fishes, particularly sand-eels and shrimps, form a chief portion of the food of the salmon, without, however, excluding worms, and other animals found on the shores which salmon frequent. That they may also feed on the ova of the Asterias glacialis; on the ova of fishes; and even, like the haddock, swallow this and other species of Asterias entire, I have no reason to doubt, and would willingly admit, even on less than the single evidence of Dr Knox, because that class of animals is, amongst others, stated by all authors to form the food of the salmon. And the existence of ova in the intestinal canal or stomach of the salmon and herring, when the other portions of the food are decomposed, is easily accounted for, from the known resistance of the coriaceous envelope of

the ova of fishes to the action of the gastric fluid. But beyond this single remark, that ova of the Asterias glacialis is found occasionally in the stomach of the salmon when in season, there is nothing in the memoir that can be said to have extended our knowledge of the food or natural history and habits of the salmon.

The next portion of Dr Knox's paper which claims notice is "the Generation of the Salmon, the Growth and Progress of the Smolt, and the descent of the kelt or spawned fish to the ocean,"-(P. 471); and here again the author seems to labour under a lamentable ignorance of what has been recorded on this subject before the appearance of his paper; for he declares he knows "of no continued series of observations on the subject, published by any one, of an authentic nature, and so as to admit of no doubt." To fill up this chasm, he resolves to detail the history of the salmon smolt, from its first deposition under gravel, in the form of an egg, to its ultimate disappearance from the fresh water streams; "remarking, that every thing stated therein fell under my own immediate personal observation." The dates of observation are-- Nov. 2 (1832), Feb. 25, March 23, April 1 and 19, and May 5 (1833 ?). The results of these observations will be stated in the sequel of this notice, as compared with the prior observations of others. It may now, however, be mentioned generally, that Dr Knox has not stated a single fact regarding the deposition or growth of the ova of the salmon-the periods of their ascending the rivers where they breed, and their return again to the sea,which had not been observed and recorded with much greater minuteness prior to the publication of his paper.

Salmon ascend the British rivers at different periods according to the seasons, generally from September to January, and deposit their spawn during the months of November, December, and January. This is fully ascertained by the evidence led before the Committee of the House of Commons. The names of the witnesses need not be here mentioned; but they state the period of salmon ascending the rivers on observations for periods varying from a few years up to no less than forty. This evidence was taken in 1824-25. Dr Knox, in the single

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