120 FISH HATCHING. 



lowing observations as regards the increase of 

 weight in the 3^oung salmon : — " The fry, at 

 three days old, is about two grains in weight ; 

 at sixteen months old, it has increased to 

 two omices, or 480 times its first weight ; 

 at twenty months old, after the smelt has 

 been a few months in the sea, it has become 

 a grilse of eight and a half pounds, it has 

 increased sixty-eight times in three or four 

 months ; at two years and eight months old 

 it becomes a salmon of twelve to fifteen 

 pounds in weight. After which, its increased 

 rate of growth has not been ascertained ; but 

 by the time it becomes thirty pounds in 

 weight it has increased 115,200 times the 

 weight it was at first. 



" I do not suppose there is any other 

 animal that increases so rapidlj^, and at so 



