Essays in Natural History and Agriculture   By: Thomas Garnett (1799-1878)

BY THE LATE THOMAS GARNETT, OF LOW MOOR, CLITHEROE.

LONDON: PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS. 1883.

CONTENTS.

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE SALMON. Introductory Observations The Salmon enters and ascends Rivers for other purposes besides Propagation Suggestions for an alteration in the Laws regarding Salmon Artificial Breeding of Fish Artificial Propagation of Fish Remarks on a Proposed Bill for the better Preservation of Salmon

LETTERS ON AGRICULTURAL SUBJECTS. On the Cultivation of Wheat on the same Land in Successive Years The Cultivation of Wheat On the Gravelling of Clay Soils Cotton

PAPERS ON NATURAL HISTORY. Wrens' Nests The Long tailed Titmouse Identity of the Green with the Wood Sandpiper The Stoat The Marsh Titmouse Creeper Wrens' Nests Alarm note of one Bird understood by other Species of Birds Dates of the appearance of some Spring Birds in 1832, at Clitheroe The Rook Serviceable to Man. Prejudice against it Sandpipers On Birds Dressing their Feathers with Oil from a Gland Mocking powers of the Sedge warbler The Water Ouzel Scolopax, Sabines, Sabine's Snipe Fish and other River Phenomena Lampreys On the Spawning of the Minnow Eels On the Possibility of Introducing Salmon into New Zealand and Australia On the Formation of Ice at the bottom of Rivers On the Production of Ice at the bottoms of Rivers Gossamer

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE SALMON.

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE SALMON.

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. We never see the fish here before May, and then very rarely; a few come in June, July, and August if there are high floods in the river, and about the latter end of September they become tolerably abundant; as the fisheries near the mouth of the river have then ceased for the season, and the Salmon run very freely up the river from that time to the middle or end of December. They begin to spawn at the latter end of October, but the greater part of those that spawn here do so in December. I believe nearer the source of the river they are earlier, but many fish are seen on the spawning beds in January; and I have even seen a pair so late as March; but this last is of very rare occurrence.

Some of the male Kipper (Kelts) come down in December and January, but the greater part of the females remain in the river until April, and they are occasionally seen herding with shoals of Smolts in May. In this state they will take a worm very readily, and are, many of them, caught with the fly in the deeps; but they are unfit to eat, the flesh being white, loose, and insipid; although they have lost the red dingy appearance which they had when about to spawn, and are almost as bright as the fresh fish, their large heads and lank bodies render it sufficiently easy to distinguish them from fish which are only ascending the river, even if the latter were plentiful at this season; but this is unfortunately not the case.