32 The Atlantic Salmon 



after the first seaward migration, it would be 

 interesting to know on what food they feed, that 

 they wax so fat — as the smolt is but a tiny crea- 

 ture from three and a half to seven or eight 

 inches long, and must have the material for his 

 stupendous growth very handy to enable him to 

 increase his size thirty or forty fold in six or eight 

 weeks. Professor Huxley believes that the food 

 consists chiefly of a class of small crustaceous 

 creatures found in semi-solid masses upon the 

 surface, frequently of deep water, in fact that the 

 salmon swims in a species of animal soup in 

 which it has merely to open its mouth and swal- 

 low what enters it. 



Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell gives in his "Natural 

 History of the British Salmonidae," published in 

 the Badminton Library, the actual weight of seven 

 marked grilse from the Stormontfield ponds 

 which were let out to go to the sea in May 

 and June and were caught from July i to 

 August 4 of the same year — the smallest 

 weighed three pounds and the largest nine and 

 a half pounds. 



The smolt is two or three weeks in changing 

 from the preceding parr stage, which consists in 

 assuming a coat of silvery scales. When this is 



