42 SALMONID.E. 



covery of this unforeseen disaster may readily be conceived. 

 However, on examining my other box, I found there were 

 still a few remaining, which I carefully collected, and put 

 into a place of greater safety. The progressive growth of 

 these, from the impregnation of the ova up to the age of 

 eighteen months, has also been uniformly the same as those 

 produced by male and female adult parents, and reared under 

 similar circumstances. 



" As a further illustration of the singular economy of the 

 Salmon in their native streams, I have yet to detail another 

 experiment or two, not less interesting than conclusive. In 

 December last (1838) I took a female Salmon from the river 

 weighing eleven pounds, and four male Parrs from the same 

 spawning bed. After impregnating four different lots of her 

 ova, one lot to each individual Parr, I placed the four Parrs 

 in a pond, where they remained until the following May, at 

 which period they assumed the migratory dress. The ova 

 were placed in streams to which no other fish had access, and 

 where they became mature in a similarly progressive manner 

 to those already detailed, thus clearly demonstrating that the 

 young Salmon of eighteen months old, while yet in the Parr 

 or early state, actually perform the duties of a male parent 

 before quitting the river.* 



" While the males of the three several broods which occu- 

 py ponds Nos. ], 2, and 3, continued in a breeding state, 

 which lasted throughout the whole of the winter of 1838-39, 

 I impregnated the ova of three adult female Salmon from the 



* " As I believe it has been objected to my views, or rather practice, regarding 

 this mode of impregnation, that the generative influence may have been in some 

 other way effected than through the medium of the Parr, I therefore took every 

 means to prove the truthful results of my experiments by varying in some mea- 

 sure their conditions. Thus, in two instances, I took a portion of the ova from 

 a female Salmon, and placed them, without impregnation, in a stream of pure 

 water. The result was as I anticipated : up to the termination of the general 

 hatching season they exhibited no appearance of vitality. The female from 



