44 SALMONID.E. 



the end of one hundred and nine days after impregnation, 

 under a temperature of 40. 



" It has been maintained by individuals whose opinions 

 are opposed to mine on this question, that the Parr is a dis- 

 tinct species, and that, by a forced connection between it and 

 the female Salmon, I was producing a hybrid. This idea at 

 once brings the importance of the last experiment more im- 

 mediately into view, from the circumstance of the male 

 parent of the specimen being actually a Parr, while the al- 

 leged hybrid, in its turn became the parent of a numerous 

 brood. 



" Were these two species, then, really distinct, it would 

 follow that the produce would be hybrids, and ' nature her- 

 self has provided against the confusion of different species by 

 a conservative law, according to which all hybrids are barren :' 

 consequently, upon this principle a law in the economy of 

 nature the Parr and Salmon are really identical in species, 

 as proved by the fact now narrated, of the young produced 

 between them having actually the power of reproducing their 

 kind. 



" Apart from these experiments, it was at one time held, 

 that the Parrs found in their native streams were hybrids, 

 from the anomalous circumstance of the males being always 

 found in the autumn with the milt matured, while females, 

 of a corresponding size, could at no season be found exhibit- 

 ing the least approximation to a breeding state.* However, 

 this idea, if it ever was seriously entertained by scientific 



* " Solitary instances have occurred of large female Parrs having been found in 

 Salmon rivers with the roe considerably developed, and I find, by detaining the 

 female Smolts in fresh water until the end of the third winter, that individuals 

 are found in this comparatively mature condition. From this fact, therefore, it 

 maybe inferred, that the large Parr, either male or female, of nine and ten 

 inches in length, which are occasionally found in rivers, are the young of the 

 Salmon, which, for some natural reason, had not been prepared to migrate at the 

 ordinary period, and had, therefore, remained for another year in the fresh 

 water. 



