Ossian Collection > Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland > Volume 4

:376 NATURALIZATION OF FISIL
because it has plenty of teeth and only one stomach ; man
is omnivorous because, although his teeth and his stomach
are like those of a horse, he has reason and has no tail ;
and the hog- resembles man in this matter, though his tail
is a spiral and he is unable to draw an inference. There
would be no use in philosophy if it could not account for
every thing. But the cow eats sea-weed, not because
she is hungry, as she quits the best pastures for the
shores. In Canada she is fed on fish ; horses eat fish in
Shetland, and so they did in Asia in the time of Hero-
dotus, as cows did among the Ichthyophagi of India, if
we are to believe Nearchus: all of which proves that
they have more reason than the anatomists. And, thus
reasoning, we bade adieu to Lismore.
In this island, there is a small lake containing Sea
Trout, which have bred there from unknown time, with-
out the possibility of communication with the Sea. This
is an apparently simple Thesis; but it deserves a longer
commentary than the Sea trout has ever yet received.
Popular opinions are always right, of course; and it is
the general conviction that sea fish can live only in the
Sea, and the reverse. If both dogmas should prove un-
true, some better consequences may follow, than that of
rearing shrimp sauce where we now breed tadpoles, or
feeding turtles where we educate frogs. Had I lived in
the glorious days of Nero, I should have been made a
Consul at least; with the addition to my name, like an-
other well-known worthy, of Mursena; or, perhaps, of
Rhombus, Lupus, or Scomber. But our age is so wise,
that it has nothing left to learn. If I have ever blamed
Donald for supposing that he had surmounted improve-
ment, let me beg his pardon, for he is the most docile of
children, in the balance.
Now that we have seen what is the conviction, on this
subject, of all those who know all that ever is to be, as
well as all that ever has been, let us enquire what the
facts are. That the Salmon can live alternately in salt
and fresh water, is known to all the world. But there