SALMOX— WUAT IS A TAR? 83 



The YOun£? of the salmon in Acts of Pai-liaiuent wore formerly designated as 

 fry and smoirs, while of late years the term par has been commonly used, :ind 

 which has been said to be calculated to mislead, because there are salmon-])ar and 

 trout-par. This brings us therefore to tlie consideration of ^Yhat is a par V And 

 I think a short history of the controversy this question has raised will be interest- 

 ing, for in such, zoologists, fishermen, learned divines, doctors, lawyers, poachers, 

 in°fact almost every class has joined.* Arguments for and against their being 



• We find Willoughby, Historia Piscium, 1686, p. 192, giving a description oi iho Salmubts 

 or "samlet" of Herefordshire, which, he tells us, inhabits the Wye, and all wluch he lias 

 examined were males ; he however places it as a distinct species. In the next page he gives it as 

 branlins or thiqerins, and asserts that he is persuaded that they interbreed with the sahnon, and 

 are only found in such places as are frequented by the salmon. Willoughby was persuaded that 

 all the various species of the genus Salmo interbred. , , , tt , -i i • i .u 



Eay, Sintopsis Methodica I'iscium, 1713, p. 63, classed the samlet of Herefordshire and the 

 branliu and iingerin of Yorkshire all as one species, and of which he afrirmed all were males. 

 Isaak Walton, Complete Angler, 1653, remarked that " in divers rivers especially that relate to 

 or be near to the sea, as Wincheiiter or the Thames about Windsor, is a httlo trout called a ' samlet 

 or ' skegger trout,' and that these be by some taken to be young salmons." Captain Irancks, 

 Northern Memoirs, 1658, page 301, described "the various brood of salmon, so to distinguish them 

 accordin- to mode, or as some will have it the custom of the country. In the south they call him 

 ' samlet ' but if you step to the west he is better known there by the name of ' skeggar ; when in 

 the east they avow him ' penk ;' but to the northward ' brood ' and 'lockspcr,' so from thence to a 

 ' tecon ' then to a ' salmon.' " J. Williamson, The British Angler, 1711, page 138, considered the 

 'samlet,' or 'salmon-smelt,' or, as they are called by some, 'salmon-fry,' are only so many 

 different names for the ' young salmon.' " Burt, in Letters from the North oj Scotland page 120, 

 writiu" of the Ness about 1730, remarked on a small fish the people call a little trout, but of another 

 species " called in the North of England a Branlin. These are so like the salmon-fry that they 

 are hardly to be distinguished, only the scales come off the fry (Smolts) in handlmg, the others 

 (Pars) have none. It is by law no less than transportation to take the salmon-fry : but in the 

 season the river is so full of them that nobody mintls it, and those young fish are so simple the 

 children catch them with a crooked pin. Yet the townsmen are of opinion that all such ot them 

 as are bred in the river, and are not devoured at sea by large fish, return thither at the proper 

 season ; and as a proof they affirm they have taken many of them, and by way of experiment, 

 clipped their tails into a forked figure, like that of a swallow, and found them with that mark when 

 full-grown and taken out of the cruives.'' , , . ^, , . ^ ,i + + i • i 



Pennant, British Zoology, iv, 1776, page 803, said the samlet is the least of the trout kind, 

 it is by several imagined to be the fry of the salmon, but from which he dissented, first because 

 salmon fry vanish on the first vernal flood after they have been born, and which sweeps them into 

 the sea, leaving scarce one behind ; and secondly, because the growth of the salmon fry is so quick 

 and so considerable as suddenly to exceed the size of the largest samlet. That the salmon attains 

 to a considerable size before it breeds, while samlets on the contrary are found male and female 

 although it has been vulgarly imagined that there were no other than males of this species. Ihat 

 they are present all the year round in the rivers, and spawn in November and December. He 

 concluded " these fish are very frequent in the rivers of Scotland, where they are cal ed pars ; 

 they are also common in the Wye, where they are known by the name of ' skirhngs and 

 'lasprings.'" He gives a short extract from Mr. Potts respecting the salmon of the Tweed,— 

 " about the latter end of March the spawn begins to exclude the young, which gradually increase 

 to the length of four or five inches, and are then termed ' smelts'_ or ' smouts. About the 

 beginning of May the river is full of them, it seems to be allahve; there is no having an idea of the 

 numbers without seeing them ; but a seasonable flood then hurries them all to the sea, scarce any 

 or very few being left in the river." ,. ,. , 



Turton British Fauna, 1807, page 104, admitted Salmo sahnulus as a distinct species. 



Should we now turn to the Reports on the Salmon Fisheries of the Lmted Kingdom, 

 drawn up by a select committee of the House of Commons, in 1821 and 1825, we hnd a consider- 

 able amount of evidence as to what par were considered in those days. One witness (U. Little, 

 page 113), on being asked if he had ever known them found in any river where there were no 

 salmon 9 replied, "I do not know that I have, I never took particular notice as to them, but I 

 consider them a fresh-water fish, unconnected with our salmon fisheries altogether. But on 

 being asked at what season of the year does the salmon fry begin to go down to the sea ? he at 

 once answered that " when the natural warmth comes into the water m the month of March, the 

 fry generally rise, and they continue going down from that time until the 1st of May ; sometimes 

 I have seen them going down till the month of June" (p. 115). _ , , , . ,, 



Mr Hogarth, in May, 1824, when samlets were descending the Don, had a number of them 

 captured and marked, by cutting off the mort or dead fin. During the month of July several 

 grilses were taken without that fin, whence he inferred that they were some of the fishes which he 

 had previously marked. Not only did samlets thus become grilses in a few weeks, but in the 

 foUowing year, 1825, he got three salmon, marked in the same way, which he also considered to 

 be some of those individuals he had marked originally as samlets In September 1824 he oaught 

 ten or twelve grilses which were put into a salt-water pond. Owmg to high tides some 



