36 THE SALMON. 



the fact that no fish are born with a silver scale or 

 migratory dress, but assume it only a short time before 

 they go seaward. The English Fisheries' Act of 1861 

 includes all the names above given as local names for 

 the young of the salmon, except " locksper" and " tecon," 

 mentions many more names, and comprehends besides 

 " all local names," anywhere in use, though not specified 

 in the Act. Such difficulties, however, as arose from 

 this confusion of nomenclature would have been easily 

 enough got over if the controversialists had really 

 been seeking for truth instead of contending for victory, 

 and had been willing to believe what any oljservant man 

 could plainly see. 



About ten years before what were really the first 

 decisive experiments, Mr. Scrope {Days and Nights of 

 Salmon Fishing) wrote a long letter to the Eight Hon. 

 T. F. Kennedy, M.P,, who had then a Bill relating to 

 the salmon-fisheries before the House of Commons, in 

 which the theory, or rather fact, that the parr is the 

 young of the salmon, was stated with positiveness, and 

 argued with great clearness and force. Mr. Scrope, of 

 course, could only proceed upon the facts he had ob- 

 served in the rivers — but these ought to have been 

 enough— such as the absence of parrs from all l)ut sal- 

 mon rivers, the disappearance of the larger parrs after 

 May, and the finding, in spring, of the distinctive marks 

 of the parr under the silver scales of the smolt. Sir 

 David Brewster, also, having made an examination at 

 the request of Mr. Scrope, gave his testimony that the 

 eye of the parr has a formation precisely the same as 

 that of the salmon, and quite different from that of the 



