The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1880-05-01

| shoals of anadromous fishes. or rather
how it is melted, has scarcely been eX-
planned. The life of the fishes has al.
ways been q mystery. 1t is not a search
for food, as they do not eat while in fresh
water; the opening of hundreds of
stomachs will fail to find food present.
1t is an easy disposal Of the question as
to how each colony recognizes its native
river to say that it is instructive So
it is, also, when the butchers horse rec
ognizes the familiar gates; but We have
some evidence as to what senses he uses.
The fishes, probably prompted by func-
tional disturbance, from the tumid ovar-
les and spermaries, are melted to move
ment. The courses of the sea, unmarked
as they are, are, within each colony's
limit. their habitual pathways. An I'M
erring capacity in the fish for finding its
own river may be no more than that
which guides the hermit-crab to the shell
of the natica. The latter goes to hide
its sensitive body, with an apparent merry
Gus trepidation at its unprotected condi-
ton. The former. with an uneasiness of
| body from the functional changes it is
undergoing, is impelled to activity. The
transmitted habit of ascending the stream
| is. as it were, blended and alleged with
| the substance of the nerves, and aroused
| by it's condition. carries it, without con-
| inf no riv al c
genitors and its own. The impulses of
the fish are only in slight more compH-
Gated series than those of the crab. That
it should be the instinct for a specific
stream, established through inheritance
Of many generations, is easier to under
stand than that it is sort Of memory OF
the place of its immature life, as the
theory of fish culture makes it, and Oh
| servation seems to sustain. In the waters
| of the Delaware, where there were no
salmon originally. the young salmon
placed in BuShkill Creek returned after
five years, and were taken, not only in
| the Delaware River, but the larger NUM-
Der in the neighborhood OF Bushkill
| Creek 1t is not essential that all the
fishes should have this impelling influence
whatever it may be, as like gregarious
mammals and birds they flock together.
following the leadership of whichever for
| the time takes it. The idea is suggested
that the senses may be the guiding agent
that fish goes nosing along the coast,
| OF tasting the streams until it recognizes
it's own. The convexity of the cornea
must afford the fishes u very limited
range of vision. The supposed dulness
| of the sense of smell and of taste i'll fishes,
might alone dispose of the suggestions
that these are employed. The following
occurrence, however, would seem to de-
eide to the contrary The Russian River
emptying into the Pacific, north of San
Francisco, had its mouth entirely closed
by the waves during storm. The colo
ny of salmon made their yearly migration
| from the deep waters toward the mouth
of the river, and many of them raced
| through the surf, and landed high and
drv on the sand that walled them out
| from their native river.
The migration of the salmon into some
of the Pacific rivers is frenzed advance
over shoals, rapids, and cascades far into
thin streams and brooks, where they al
rive battered and weary. to accomplish
their exhaustive reproductive labors. and
drop back, the sport of the current. dead
and dying, toward the sea.