medium stock (No. 105), 1 onion, 1 tablespoonful of curry-powder, 1
teaspoonful of Harvey's sauce, 1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, 1 oz. of
butter, the juice of 1/2 lemon, cayenne and salt to taste.
_Mode_.--Cut up the onions into small pieces, and fry them of a pale
brown in the butter; add all the ingredients but the salmon, and simmer
gently till the onion is tender, occasionally stirring the contents; cut
the salmon into small square pieces, carefully take away all skin and
bone, lay it in the stewpan, and let it gradually heat through; but do
not allow it to boil long.
_Time_.--3/4 hour. _Average cost_, exclusive of the cold fish, 9d.
GROWTH OF THE SALMON.--At the latter end of the year--some as
soon as November--salmon begin to press up the rivers as far as
they can reach, in order to deposit their spawn, which they do
in the sand or gravel, about eighteen inches deep. Here it lies
buried till the spring, when, about the latter end of March, it
begins to exclude the young, which gradually increase to four or
five inches in length, and are then termed smelts or smouts.
About the beginning of May, the river seems to be alive with
them, and there is no forming an idea of their numbers without
having seen them. A seasonable flood, however, comes, and
hurries them to the "great deep;" whence, about the middle of
June, they commence their return to the river again. By this
time they are twelve or sixteen inches long, and progressively
increase, both in number and size, till about the end of July,
when they have become large enough to be denominated _grilse_.
Early in August they become fewer in numbers, but of greater
size, haying advanced to a weight of from six to nine pounds.
This rapidity of growth appears surprising, and realizes the
remark of Walton, that "the salmlet becomes a salmon in as short
a time as a gosling becomes a goose." Recent writers have,
however, thrown considerable doubts on this quick growth of the
salmon.
SALMON CUTLETS.