20 SALMONID.E. 



with which the two year old Parr assumes the aspect of the 

 salmon-fry that has led to this false conclusion, and super- 

 ficial or hasty observers, taking cognizance, 1st, of the hatch- 

 ing of the ova in early spring, and, 2dly, of the sea-ward 

 migration of Smolts soon afterwards, have imagined these 

 two facts to take place in immediate or speedy succession. 

 I may now mention what actually becomes of these young 

 fishes for some weeks after they are hatched. 



" That the fish in question should not be found in the 

 river in an earlier state than that in which it is named the 

 May or summer Parr, had long appeared to me to be an 

 extraordinary and perplexing circumstance. I therefore made 

 a minute examination of the streams where the old Salmon 

 had spawned the preceding winter, and I there found in 

 vast numbers a very small but active fish, which I concluded 

 to be the young Parr or Samlet of the season. To prove the 

 fact, I scooped up with a gauze-net two or three dozen of 

 them, on the 15th of May, 1834. They measured about an 

 inch in length ; their heads were large in proportion to their 

 bodies, and the latter tapered off towards the tail, in the form 

 of a wedge. The small transverse bars, characteristic of the 

 Parr, were already distinctly marked. I placed them in two 

 ponds, each provided with a run of water, where they throve 

 well. In the course of the succeeding May (1835), that is, 

 when they were more than a year old, and had been twelve 

 months in my possession, I took a few of them from the 

 pond for the purpose of examination. They had increased to 

 the length of three and a half inches, on an average, and it is 

 important to remark, that they correspond in every respect 

 with the Parr of the same age which occurred in the river ; 

 but neither as yet indicated any approach to the silvery 

 aspect of the Smolt. Being satisfied, however, from the 

 result of my former experiments on the Parr, that they would 

 ultimately assume that silvery aspect, I continued to detain 



