BUBUV KATUJUL HlblO&Y SOCUXY. 1 1 1 



JUNE 16, 1654. 



OBSEBTATIONS ON TBS SALMON, PARR, AND ORATELLINO. BY W. ANDREWS, M.B.LA. 



It had been my intention this evening to have submitted to the Society some 

 peculiarities that I had observed in the spawning states of the SyngnathidsD, or 

 pipe-fish family, more especially with reference to Syngnathus lyphU—ihe deep- 

 nosed pipe-fish — and to the straight-nosed pipe-fish (^. ophidion), and to have 

 added a review of the several British species (all of which 1 have obtained on 

 the south-west coast), detailing their several habits, and seasons of spawning. 

 From this, however, 1 have been diverted by several commimicatious that have 

 been made relative to the habits of the salmon, and as to the identity of the fish 

 known as tlie parr, or gravelling, with the Salmo salar. This being a subject 

 of such importance, not alone in a scientific point, but in its practical applica- 

 tion, I have again laid aside my paper upon the Syngnathidse, with the hope that 

 this will afford full discussion of interest for the evening. It may be in the re- 

 collection of the Members that a paper of great interest was given by Mr. Ffen- 

 nell. Inspecting Commissioner of Fisheries, in the month of February, 1849, 

 ** On the Habits and Spawning States of the Salmon, and upon the Salmon 

 Fisheries of this Country." In that paper Mr. Ffennell supported the views of 

 Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, relative to the first or the parr state of the young 

 salmon, and its remaining two years in the river before it assimied the smolt or 

 migratory state ; and though he admitted that the seasons and the condition of 

 salmon were not the same in all rivers, yet he maintained that a imiform system 

 of open and close season should be adopted, in order to prevent the nefarious 

 and injurious system that might probably result in salmon being exposed for 

 sale in a public market, taken from a close river, while other rivers were open. 

 This paper was, in some measure, an explanation with reference to an inquiry 

 held on the fisheries of the Caragh and the Laune, in Kerry. My friend, Mr. 

 Williams, at that meeting of the Society, energetically disputed that the fish 

 known generally as the parr or gravelling was the young of the salmon. He had 

 made examinations of an extensive collection of that little fish, which he had 

 obtained thoughout the seasons from the rivers of Cork and of Wicklow, and he 

 was not disposed to agree with Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, that all fish termed 

 gravellings were the yoimg of the salmon. At the meetings of April and of 

 May last, notices were again brought forward by Mr. Ffennell and by Mr. Wil- 

 liams, and 1 thought it might lead to interesting, and, I trust, useful discussion, 

 to submit some of the fish in the parr and in the smolt state, and to offer a few 

 remarks. At the time of that discussion, in 1849, my attention had been chiefly 

 directed to the sea-fisheries of the west coast ; but during the seasons of 1848, 

 1849, and 1850, I bad ample practical means of making observations in the sal- 

 mon fishery connected with the project 1 was engaged in. Determined to fol- 

 low out that inquiry as time and circumstances permitted, my friend, Mr. Wil- 

 liams, accompanied me on the 23rd of May to Carlow, to visit the little river 

 Greece. Former recollections and frequent fishing excursions satisfied me that 

 the little fish known and described as the parr by Yarrell existed there in abun- 

 dance. The rivers Greece and Ler, which stream through the borders of Car- 

 low and Kildare, and empty into the River Barrow, are famous for their excel- 

 lent trout ; the former, a lively stream, rapid over clean, gravelly beds, pro- 

 duces abundance of bright and well-fed trout 



Although the day was in every way unsuited to the wishes of a ily-fisher, w«, 

 however, soon obtained the object of our search. Many years have passed sine* 

 my former visits, but there were the same purling, restless stream, the bmoks, 

 the untopped wall leading to the old bridge, unchanged and untouched, as it 

 were but yesterday. Carlow is delightfully rural ; its avcnue-lik«» roads, bor- 

 dered with tall, fri^rant hawthorn, made us buoyantly feel the change from city 

 life. Besides, to the naturalist every step afforded interest ; along the banks of 



