The Salmon Family and Close Relations

This is a puzzling group of fish; puzzling, at least, for someone who has set himself the task of writing about sea fish and not about freshwater fish. The salmon starts life in fresh water and comes back to be caught or to spawn, but spends half or more of its life in the sea. The sea or salmon trout, which behaves similarly, is the same species as the brown trout, which stays in fresh water all the time. And fish which we know in Britain from lakes and lochs are caught by sea fishermen in the Baltic. The result is that in this part of the catalogue, which deals with the Order Salmoniformes, I have to make interesting excursions among what are usually regarded as freshwater species.