Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

We believe that a good deal of the contrariety of opinion which prevails on this subject, arises from anglers and other men confounding an inclined plane with a perpendicular height. Salmon will assuredly overcome a prodigious force of descending water,—a roaring turmoil, which presents from below the aspect of a fall, but consists in reality of separate ledges massed together into one, when "floods lift up their voices." We are sorry to say, however, that the entire practice of angling is pervaded by a system of inaccuracy, exaggeration, and self-deceit, which is truly humiliating. There is consequently no period in the life of a young person which ought to be more sedulously superintended by parents and guardians, than that in which he is first allowed to plant himself by the rivers of waters. The most wonderful feature, however, in the leaping of salmon is not so much the height to which they spring, as the ease, elegance, and certainty, with which, while ascending small cataracts, they make their upward movements. For example, near Oykel bridge in Sutherland, there is a rocky interruption to the more ordinary current of the river, where the water is contained, as it were, in stages of pots or little caldrons, over the lower edge of each of which it dances downwards in the form of a short perpendicular fall. From a neighbouring bank by the river side, the movements of the aspiring fish may be distinctly seen. When a grilse has made his way to the foot of one of these falls, (which he never could have ascended before, although he must have descended it in childhood on his seaward way,) without a moment's doubt or hesitation he darts into the air, and throws himself head-foremost into the little basin above, to the bottom of which he instantly descends. Nothing can be more curious than the air of nonchalance with which they drop into these watery chambers, as if they knew their dimensions to an inch, and had been in the habit of sleeping in them every night. Now, from what has been ascertained of the natural history of the species, although the adult salmon of the Oykel must have previously made the leap at least once before, no fresh-run grilse could have ever done so; and yet, during suitable weather in the summer season, they are sometimes seen springing along with all the grace and agility of a troop of voltigeurs. Their object of course is to rest themselves for a short time, before leaping into the second range from the ground floor. But this innocent intention is too often interfered with; for a sharp-sighted Highlander, stationed on the bank above, immediately descends with landing-net in hand, and scoops them out of their natural caldron, with a view to their being speedily transferred to another of more artificial structure—the chief difference, however, consisting in the higher temperature of the water.

"Salmon," says Mr Scrope, "are led by instinct to select such places for depositing their spawn as are the least likely to be affected by the floods. These are the broad parts of the river, where the water runs swift and shallow, and has a free passage over an even bed. There they either select an old spawning place, a sort of trough left in the channel, or form a fresh one. They are not fond of working in new loose channels, which would be liable to be removed by a slight flood, to the destruction of their spawn. The spawning bed is made by the female. Some have fancied that the elongation of the lower jaw in the male, which is somewhat in the form of a crook, is designed by nature to enable him to excavate the spawning trough. Certainly it is difficult to divine what may be the use of this very ugly excrescence; but observation has proved that this idea is a fallacy, and that the male never assists in making the spawning place: and, indeed, if he did so he could not possibly make use of the elongation in question for that purpose, which springs from the lower jaw, and bends inwards towards the throat. When the female commences making her spawning bed, she generally comes after sunset, and goes off in the morning; she works up the gravel with her snout, her head pointing against the stream, as my fisherman has clearly and unequivocally witnessed, and she arranges the position of the loose gravel with her tail. When this is done, the male makes his appearance in the evenings, according to the usage of the female. He then remains close by her, on the side on which the water is deepest."—P. 15.

During this crisis trout collect below to devour such portions of the spawn as float down the river, and parr are frequently seen hovering in and around the trough. All these parr are salmon fry of the male sex, in a state of maturity; and if the old gentleman chances to be killed, or driven away, without having provided an assistant or successor, the "two-year-olds" perform the functions of paternity. This circumstance, though overlooked by modern naturalists till the days of Shaw, (not the old compiling doctor of the British Museum, but the more practical "keeper" of Drumlanrig,) was known and described by Willoughby in the seventeenth century. "To demonstrate the fact," says the more recent observer, "in January 1837, I took a female salmon, weighing fourteen pounds, from the spawning bed, from whence I also took a male parr, weighing one ounce and a half, with the milt of which I impregnated a quantity of her ova, and placed the whole in a private pond, where, to my great astonishment, the process succeeded in every respect as it had done with the ova which had been impregnated by the adult male salmon, and exhibited, from the first visible appearance of the embryo fish, up to their assuming their migratory dress, the utmost health and vigour."

So serious is the destruction of the spawn and fry of salmon, both by sea and fresh-water trout, that the Duke of Sutherland's manager would willingly, were it possible, extirpate the entire breed of these fish. "They commence," he informs us, in a letter of 15th May 1843, "the moment the salmon begin to deposit their spawn, and in the course of the spawning season they devour an immense quantity of ova. Indeed, at all other times of the year, they feed on the fry of salmon, and continue their destruction till the day the smolts leave the rivers. I have often cut up trout, and got smolts in their stomach; and last week a trout was opened in Mr Buist's fish-yard with four full-grown smolts in its belly. From these and other similar occurrences, you may judge to what extent this destruction is carried on, in the course of a single year, in such a river as our Oykel, where I have killed seven hundred trout at a single hawl." We understand that, some years ago, when Mr Trap, (a most appropriate name,) the fishmonger in Perth, had the Dupplin cruives, he got about 400 whitlings (or sea-trout) in one day, all of them gorged to the throat with salmon fry. The sea-trout of Sutherlandshire, like those of the Nith and the Annan, almost all belong to the species named Salmo trutta by naturalists. They scarcely ever exceed, indeed rarely attain to, a weight of five pounds; and such as go beyond that weight, and range upwards from eight to twelve pounds, are generally found to pertain to Salmo eriox, the noted bull-trout of the Tweed. The great grey sea-trout of the river Ness, which sometimes reaches the weight of eighteen pounds, we doubt not, also belongs to the species last named. It is rare in the waters of the Tay.

In regard to the seaward migration of salmon fry, Mr Scrope is of opinion that some are continually going down to the salt water in every month of the year, not with their silver scales on, but in the parr state.

"I say, not with their silver scales, because no clear smolt is ever seen in the Tweed during the summer and autumnal months. As the spawning season in the Tweed extends over a period of six months, some of the fry must be necessarily some months older than the others, a circumstance which favours my supposition that they are constantly descending to the sea, and it is only a supposition, as I have no proof of the fact, and have never heard it suggested by any one. But if I should be right, it will clear up some things that cannot well be accounted for in any other mode. For instance, in the month of March 1841, Mr Yarrell informs me that he found a young salmon in the London market, and which he has preserved in spirits, measuring only fifteen inches long, and weighing only fifteen ounces. And again another, the following April, sixteen and a half inches long, weighing twenty-four ounces. Now, one of these appeared two months, and the other a month, before the usual time when the fry congregate. According to the received doctrine, therefore, these animals were two of the migration of the preceding year; and thus it must necessarily follow that they remained in salt water, one ten, and the other eleven months, with an increase of growth so small as to be irreconcilable with the proof we have of the growth of the grilse and salmon during their residence in salt water."—P. 36.

We are not entirely of Mr Scrope's opinion, that some salmon fry are descending to the sea during every month of the year; at least, we do not conceive that this forms a part of their regular rotation. But the nature of the somewhat anomalous individuals alluded to by Mr Yarrell, may be better understood from the following considerations. Although it is an undoubted fact that the great portion of parr descend together to the sea, as smolts, in May, by which time they have entered into their third year, yet it is also certain that a few, owing to some peculiarity in their natural constitution, do not migrate at that time, but continue in the rivers all summer. As these have not obeyed the normal or ordinary law which regulates the movements of their kind, they make irregular migrations to the sea during the winter floods, and ascend the rivers during the spring months, some time before the descent of the two-year-olds. We have killed parr of this description, measuring eight and nine inches, in the rivers in October, and we doubt not these form eventually the small, thin, rather ill-conditioned grilse which are occasionally taken in our rivers during early spring. But it is midsummer before the regularly migrating smolts reappear as grilse. However, certain points in relation to this branch of our subject may still be regarded as "open questions," on which the Cabinet has not made up its mind, and may agree to differ. Mr Scrope is certainly right in his belief, that, whatever be the range of time occupied by the descent of smolts towards the sea, they are not usually seen descending with their silvery coating on except in spring; although our Sutherland correspondent, to whom we have so frequently referred, is not of that opinion. It may be, that those which do not join the general throng, migrate in a more sneaking sort of way during summer. They are non-intrusionists, who have at first refused to sign the terms of the Convocation; but finding themselves eventually rather out of their element, on the wrong side of the cruive dyke, and not wishing to fall as fry into the cook's hands, have sea-ceded some time after the disruption of their General Assembly.

Even those smolts which descend together in April and May, (the chief periods of migration,) do not agree in size. Many are not half the length of others, although all have assumed the silvery coat. "I had, last April," Mr Young informs us in a letter of 3d June 1843, "upwards of fifty of them in a large bucket of water, for the purpose of careful and minute examination of size, &c., when I found a difference of from three and a half to six inches—the smallest having the same silvery coat as the largest. We cannot at all wonder at this difference, as it is a fact that the spawn even of the same fish exhibits a disparity in its fry as soon as hatched, which continues in all the after stages. Although the throng of our smolts descend in April and May, we have smolts descending in March, and as late in the season as August, which lapse of time agrees with the continuance of our spawning season. But in all these months we have an equal proportion (that is, a corresponding mixture) of large and small smolts. I have earnestly searched for smolts in the winter months, year after year, and I can only say that I have never seen one, although I have certainly tried every possible means to find them. I have seen fish spawning through the course of six months, and I have seen smolts descending through the same length of time. Our return of grilses, too, exactly corresponds with this statement. Thus a few descending March smolts give a few ascending May grilses; while our April and May swarms of smolts yield our hordes of grilse in June and July. After July, grilses decrease in numbers till October, in proportion to the falling off of smolts from May to August. At least these are my observations in our northern streams." They are observations of great value, and it is only by gathering together similar collections of facts from various quarters, that we can ultimately attain to a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the whole subject.

We gather from our most recent correspondence with Mr Shaw, (Letter of 8th June 1843,) that he does not regard the range in the spawning period to be followed by a corresponding range in the departure of smolts towards the sea, and in their return from it as grilse. He has found a considerable diversity of time in the assumption of the silvery coating even among individuals of the very same family. "I do not," he observes, "recollect an instance where there were not individuals of each brood reared in my ponds, which assumed the migratory coating several weeks before the brood in general had done so; and these individuals would have migrated accordingly, and reappeared as grilse all the sooner." As the hatching and growth of salmon smolts and other fish, is regulated in a great measure by the temperature of the water in which they dwell, it is very probable that ova deposited late in the season, (say the month of March,) may, in consequence of the great increase of temperature, be hatched much more rapidly than those spawned in mid-winter, and so, by the end of a couple of years, no great difference will exist between them. We remember that, in one of Mr Shaw's earlier experiments, it is stated that he took occasion to convey a few ova in a tumbler within doors, where the temperature ranged from 45° to 47°. They were hatched in thirty-six hours, while such as were left in the stream of the pond, in a temperature of 41°, did not hatch until the termination of seven subsequent days. The whole had been previously one hundred and six days in the water, under a considerably lower temperature.

Mr Shaw has frequently detected individual smolts, both of salmon and sea-trout, (though of the latter more particularly,) descending in some seasons as early as the end of March, and as late as the middle of June, and he has little doubt that some may make their way still earlier to the sea. These, of course, will be found in our tideways as small grilse, weighing one or two pounds, in April and May. The large parr, to which we have already alluded as occasionally met with in rivers, and which we regard as young salmon remaining (and in this forming exceptions to the normal rule) in fresh water throughout their third year, Mr Shaw, whose opinion we requested on the subject, coincides with us in thinking, "would, in all probability, be the first to quit the river after so long a residence there, when the season of migration approached. These, however, are not the only individuals of their kind which leave the river for the sea long before the month of May." A difference in the period of deposition will assuredly cause a difference in the period of hatching, and in this we agree with Mr Scrope; but we think that a late spawning, having the advantage of a higher temperature as the result of a more genial season, will be followed by a more rapid development, and so the difference will not be so great, nor expanded over so many months, as that gentlemen supposes. Finally, the vagrant summer smolts, to which we have before alluded, may consist of that small number of anomalous fry, which we know to assume the migratory dress and instinct soon after the completion of their first year.

Although the excellence of a salmon's condition is derived from the sea, and all its increase of weight is gained there, yet few of these fish remain for any considerable length of time in marine waters. By a wonderful, and to us most beneficial instinct, they are propelled to revisit their ancestral streams, with an increase of size corresponding to the length of their sojourn in the sea. Such as observe their accustomed seasons, (and of these are the great mass of smolts,) return at certain anticipated times. Their periods are known, and their revolutions calculated. Such as migrate at irregular or unobserved intervals, return unexpectedly at different times. Their motions seem eccentric, because their periods have not been ascertained.

But it is obvious that Mr Yarrell's diminutive examples already alluded to, could not have gone down to the sea with the great majority of their kind, during the spring preceding that in which they were captured; because, in that case, having remained a much longer time than usual in salt water, they would have returned as very large grilse instead of extremely small ones.

Mr Scrope informs us that the most plentiful season in the Tweed for grilse, if there has been a flood, is about the time of St Boswell's fair, namely, the 18th of July, at which period they weigh from four to six pounds. Those which don't leave the salt for the fresh water till the end of September and the course of October, sometimes come up from the sea for the first time weighing ten or eleven pounds, or even more.

"Some of them are much larger than small salmon; but by the term grilse I mean young salmon that have only been once to sea. They are easily distinguished from salmon by their countenance, and less plump appearance, and particularly by the diminished size of the part of the body next the tail, which also is more forked than that of the salmon. They remain in fresh water all the autumn and winter, and spawn at the same time with the salmon. They return also to sea in spring with the salmon. It seems worthy of remark, that salmon are oftentimes smaller than moderate-sized grilse; but, although such grilse have been only once to sea, yet the period they have remained there must have exceeded the two short visits made by the small salmon, and hence their superiority of size. When these fish return to the river from their second visit to the sea, they are called salmon, and are greatly altered in their shape and appearance; the body is more full, and the tail less forked, and their countenance assumes a different aspect."—P. 37.

We are glad to observe that in these opinions regarding the growth of grilse and salmon, our author conforms with, and consequently confirms, the ingenious and accurate experimental observations recently completed by Mr Young of Invershin.11

Of all those natural causes which counteract the increase of salmon fry, and consequently of grown grilse and adult salmon, Mr Scrope considers that the "furious spates" which so frequently occur in Tweed, are the most destructive. These not only put the channel in motion, but often sweep away the spawning beds entirely. Prior to the improvements in agriculture, and the amelioration of the hill pastures by drainage, the floods were much less sudden, because the morasses and swampy grounds gave out water gradually, and thus the river took longer to rise, and continued fuller for a greater length of time than in these degenerate days, to the increased delight of every acre-less angler.

"But now every hill is scored with little rills which fall into the rivers, which suddenly become rapid torrents and swell the main river, which dashes down to the ocean with tumultuous violence. Amidst the great din you may hear the rattling of the channel stones as they are borne downwards. Banks are torn away; new deeps are hollowed out, and old ones filled up; so that great changes continually take place in the bed of the river either for the better or the worse. When we contemplate these things, we must at once acknowledge the vast importance of Mr Shaw's experiments; for if ponds were constructed upon the Tweed at the general expense, after the model of those made by him, all these evils would be avoided. The fry might be produced in any quantities by artificial impregnation, be preserved, and turned into the great river at the proper period of migration. There might at first be some difficulty in procuring food for them; but this would be easily got over at a very small expense, and with a few adult salmon more fry may be sent to sea annually than the whole produce of the river at present amounts to, after having encountered the sweeping perils I have mentioned."—P. 43.

Our author then proposes that proprietors should call meetings for the purpose, and that parr, hitherto so named, should now, in their capacity of young salmon, be protected by law. He advises all who have an interest in the river, to consider the wisdom of mutual accommodation; the owners of the more seaward banks being dependent on the upper heritors for the protection of the spawning fish and fry, while they, on the other hand, are equally dependent on the former for an honest adherence to the weekly close-time.

But a thoughtful consideration of this portion of our subject would lead us into a somewhat interminable maze, including the policy of our ancient Acts of Parliament, and the nature of estuaries,—those mysteriously commingled "watteris quhar the sea ebbis and flowis,"—"ubi salmunculi vel smolti, seu fria alterius generis piscium maris vel aquæ dulcis, (nunquam) descendunt et ascendunt,"—and then the stake-net question stretches far before us, and dim visions of the "Sutors of Cromarty" rise upon our inward eye, and the wild moaning of the "Gizzin Brigs" salutes our ear, and defenders are converted into appellants, and suspenders into respondents, and the whole habitable earth assumes for a time the aspect of a Scotch Jury Court, which suddenly blazes into the House of Lords.12

That salmon return with great regularity to the river in which they were originally bred, is now well known. Mr Scrope, however, thinks that they do not invariably do so, but will ascend other rivers during spawning time, if they find their own deficient in bulk of water. Thus many Tweed salmon are caught in the Forth, (a deep and sluggish stream,) and a successful fishing there is usually accompanied by a scarce one in the Tweed. Yet we know that they will linger long, during periods of great drought, in those mingled waters where the sea "comes and gangs,"—as was well seen in the hot and almost rainless summer of 1842, when the Berwick fishings were abundant, but those of Kelso and the upper streams extremely unproductive. The established fact, however, that grilse and salmon, under ordinary natural circumstances, do certainly return to their native beds, is one of great practical importance, because it permits the plan of peopling barren rivers by the deposition of impregnated spawn carried from more fruitful waters. It ought to be borne in mind, however, in relation to this latter point, that these waters must possess, in a considerable measure, the same natural attributes which characterize the voluntary haunts of salmon. If they do not do so, although the fry bred there will in all probability return thither from the sea as grilse, yet the breeding process will be carried on at first feebly, and then inefficiently, till the species finally becomes extinct. The same observations, of course, apply to trout. It has been proposed, we believe by Sir W.F. Mackenzie of Gairloch, to apply the principle of one set of Mr Shaw's experiments to the improvement of moorland lochs, or others, in which the breed of trout may be inferior, by carrying the ova of a better and richer flavoured variety from another locality. Now, in this well-intentioned scheme, we think there is some confusion of cause and effect. It is the natural difference in food, and other physical features and attributes, between the two kinds of lochs in question, which causes or is intimately connected with the difference in the fleshly condition of their finny inhabitants; and unless we can also change the characters of the surrounding country, and the bed of the watery basin, we shall seek in vain to people "the margins of our moorish floods" with delicate trout, lustrous without any red of hue within, in room of those inky-coated, muddy-tasted tribes, "indigenæ an advectæ," which now dwell within our upland pools.