PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 231 



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 had 

 ample practical means of making observations in the salmon fishery connected with 

 the project I was engaged in. Determined to follow out that inquiry as time and 

 circumstances permitted, my friend, Mr. Williams, 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 abundance. The rivers Greece and Ler, which stream 

 through the borders of Carlow and Kildare, and empty into the river Barrow, are 

 famous for their excellent trout ; the former, a lively stream, rapid over clean, gra- 

 velly beds, produces abundance of bright and well-fed trout. 



Although the day was in every way unsuited to the wishes of a fly-fisher, we, 

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

 my former visits, but there was the same purling, restless stream, the banks, the 

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

 yesterday. Carlow is delightfully rural ; its avenue-like roads, bordered with tall, 

 fragrant hawthorn, made us buoyantly feel the change from city life. Besides, to 

 the naturalist, every step afforded interest ; along the banks of the river the Ephe- 

 meras and the Phryganeae, as they suddenly emerged from the pupa state, almost 

 as suddenly merged into the stomach of some lively trout ; the light and the dark 

 ash-fox, brown and gray Coughlins, and the hawthorn flies, as they floated along, 

 or fluttered about the stream, were all the objects of attraction. The question 

 which we sought the elucidation of, was not as to whether salmon do or do not 

 enter the Greece from the Barrow, or whether the shallow beds of that little stream 

 are or are not suited for spawning-ground, but with regard to the distinctive cha- 

 racters of the parr existing there, its comparison with that described in Yarrel, and 

 with that of the true salmon-fry. The local terms, lasprings, gravel-lasprings, 

 salmon-pink, fingerlings, gravellings, parr, and samlet, have all been made of too 

 general application, and no proper separation has been drawn distinguishing habits 

 or characteristics ; but all are confounded as gravellings, and gravellings said to be 

 to be the parr, the young of the salmon. My friend Williams had argued that the 

 gravelling that he had obtained in some of the rivers of Cork and of Wicklow, were 

 not the young of the salmon, and so far he was right ; for neither were those we 

 obtained in the Greece. These latter were identical with the accurate descriptions 

 given by Yarrell, by Dr. Heyshaw, and by several authors. 



The head being of a greenish ash-colour; back and sides, above the lateral 

 line, dusky, or olivaceous brown, marked with numerous dark spots, bordering 

 the lateral line a series of carmine or vermilion- coloured spots ; belly, silvery 

 white, and the body marked with nine or ten bluish -coloured transverse bars ; 

 gill-covers have generally two dark- coloured spots, one more strongly marked 

 than the other ; dorsal fin with a few dusky spots ; pectoral fins, larger than 

 those of the common trout, yellowish white ; anal and ventral fins, yellowish ; 

 caudal fin, much forked ; body, deeper in proportion to its length ; general length 

 from four to six inches. Now, on comparing these specimens with those of the 

 true salmon-fry, obtained from the Bandon, Laune, and the Carragh rivers, we 

 find great distinctions in development and markings. In the true salmon-fry, the 

 head more blunt ; broader on the neck and shoulders ; gill-covers marked 

 similar with spots silvery gray ; preoperculum much rounded, external edge soft ; 

 back, dusky ash-colour, with numerous minute dark spots, which do not go beneath 

 the lateral line ; nine bright orange, or approaching to vermilion- coloured spots 

 along the lateral line, equalling in number the transverse bars ; pectoral fins, long 

 in proportion, yellowish white, tinged with black ; dusky spots generally absent on 

 the dorsal fin ; caudal fin, largely developed ; ventral and anal fins, yellowish white ; 

 belly, white. The body is narrower in proportion to its length than that of the 

 parr, and the teeth in a more rudimentary state. 



All the specimens of the Salmonidae that I have obtained are more or less in the 

 young state characterized by those transverse bars. In the rivers where it frequents, 

 the parr is abundant in all seasons, in the same stages of growth ; and even when the 



