Mr D. Ellis oii the Natural History of the Sahtion. 259 



form the salmon. At the commencement of the grilse season, 

 only small ones are taken, which increase gradually to the 

 weight of seven or ciglit pounds. Now, were the grilse a dis- 

 tinct species, we might, says Dr Fleming, expect to meet with 

 some of them the following year as old fish, weighing nine 

 or ten pounds, whereas, we get them only of small size, from 

 one and a half to two or more pounds *. To ascertain the fact 

 by experiment, Mr G. Hogarth jun, in the month of May 1824, 

 when the samlets were going down the river Don, caused a num- 

 ber of them to be taken ^nd marked by cutting off the mort or 

 dead fin. In the course of the month of July, several grilses 

 were taken without that fin; whence he inferred, that they were 

 some of the fishes he had previously marked. Not only 

 did samlets thus become grilses in a few weeks, but, in the 

 following year (1825), he got three salmon, marked in the 

 same way, which he also considered to be some of those indi- 

 viduals he had marked originally as samlets. Farther, in 

 the month of September in the year 1824, he caught ten or 

 twelve grilses, which were put into a salt water pond. Owing 

 to some very high tides that season, some of these fish made 

 their escape, but there were three still alive in May of the 

 following year. These he had taken out and examined in the 

 presence of many competent judges, who all were decidedly of 

 opinion that they were real salmon, t These experiments con- 

 firm the statements already made, proving not only the growth 

 of the smolt or samlet into the giilse or botcher, but also that of 

 the grilse into the gilHng or salmon of one year'^s growth. 



With respect to the subsequent growth of the salmon, it is con- 

 sidered that, in the river Severn, the young sahnon, which, in the 

 spring of the year, weighs from ten to fifteen pounds, has increas- 

 ed, in the following months of December and January, to eighteen 

 and twenty-five pounds, and in another year would attain the 

 weight of thirty-five or forty pounds, which is as large as they 

 are now ever taken in that river. It is not doubted, however, 

 that if they escaped the nets of the fishers, they would grow to 

 a still greater size, a salmon having heretofore been taken which 

 weighed fifty-two pounds when out of season ; and which would 

 doubtless have been of greater weight had he been taken while 

 in the condition of a clean fish. In the river Lee in Ireland, 

 • Report II. p. 92. f Report II. Appen. p. 13. 



