NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 37 



trout. About eight years later, and still previous to the 

 decisive experimeuts, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, 

 gave the world some very good reasons of his own for 

 holdiug the parr to be the young of the salmon, — reasons 

 founded on observation and experience, partly on his 

 having observed the gradual assumption of the migra- 

 tory dress by the parr in the spring months, partly on his 

 having caught as grilse fish which he had marked when 

 parr, or when in their transition-state from parr to smolt. 

 This, however, had little effect, beyond raising a crop of 

 jokes about the license of poets in general, and of poet 

 Hogg in particular. The fact is, that the brothers of 

 the angle, especially the elder brethren, though the best 

 of men, are rather addicted to stiffness in opinion as to 

 things connected with the art. Almost every man had, 

 till withiii these few years, his own theory as to the 

 salmon and the pari-, which stood well enough, in so far 

 as it was no more unnatural and irrational than any of 

 the half-dozen theories of the half-dozen neighbours with 

 whom he had debated, and which he probably clung to all 

 the closer that it was purely and strictly his oivn, having 

 no source in search, experiment, or even what could be 

 fairly called observation. Amidst all these self-satisfied, 

 and only self-satisfied theorists, Mr. Shaw — head-keeper 

 to the Duke of Buccleuch at Drumlanrig Castle — ap- 

 peared, in 1836, with his measurements, his plates, and 

 his dates, the result of careful and repeated experiments 

 — and almost instantly the whole tribe turned on him as 

 a common enemy. Even had there been no proof l^y ex- 

 periment, it would have given a most unfavourable idea 

 of the amount of candour, or perviousness to conviction, 



