SALMON. 35 



river in shoals on the very day (10th of May) on which that 

 season's produce were only emerging from the ova. 



" Owing to the great family likeness which is known to 

 exist amongst the young of the several species of the genus 

 Salmo in their early stages, an idea has been entertained that 

 unscientific observers are in the practice of confounding the 

 progeny of the whole of the migratory species indiscriminately 

 under the too general name of Parr. To obviate this in- 

 convenience, and to mark the distinction of species in their 

 earlier stages, recourse has been had to very fanciful and ill- 

 defined attributes ; and I am of opinion that in almost every 

 instance these vague characters have been applied to indivi- 

 duals of the young of the real Salmon, of which the charac- 

 ters had not been so fully developed as those of others, rather 

 than to the young of any distinct species. With the view, 

 therefore, of affording scientific men an opportunity of com- 

 paring the young of the Salmon Trout with that of the 

 Salmon, with which they are supposed to have been con- 

 founded, I have taken this opportunity of laying before the 

 Royal Society a brood of the former produced by artificial 

 impregnation, and exhibiting five successive stages, from the 

 day on which they were hatched to the age of nine months, 

 accompanied by the skins of the parent fishes. At the age of 

 six months they bear no very marked resemblance to the 

 young of the real Salmon either in the Parr or fry state, and 

 as they advance in age and size, the resemblance becomes 

 still slighter. However, on comparing them with the com- 

 mon Trout, the resemblance is very striking, the general out- 

 line of the fish being much less elegant than that of the 

 young Salmon or Parr, the external markings being also more 

 peculiarly those of the Trout species, so that, in the absence 

 of the parent skins, it would be a matter of difficulty to 

 determine to which kind of Trout they actually belong. A 

 specimen of the young Common Trout of this season's pro- 



D 2 



