SALMOISI"— PAR BECOMING SMOLTS. 80 



some pai'S migi'ating at one year the remainder after two seasons was owing to 

 tlie first being the produce of salmon and tlie second of grilse was refuted.* 

 While observations made in the same establishment also clearly proved individual 

 par from one hatching may greatly vary in size,t and that when half the par 

 descended^ from the breeding pond as smolts one year, those which remained for 



who appealed, when the case was remitted back to the sheriff to inquire whether " par were 

 salmon fry "? On the 8th of October, 1869, the sheriff found that " the defendant had in his 

 possession certain fish commonly known as pars, but which are not named in the prohibitory and 

 penal clauses libelled ; but iinding it not proved that he then had any fish known as smolts, the 

 only fish named in the same section of the statute libelled, and declines to inquire and decide 

 the question in natural science, whether par be, or be not, salmon fry." The slieriff-substitute, 

 July 12th, 1870, " finds it not proved that, in the popular and well-understood sense, any of the 

 pars found in the possession of the accused on the day libelled were salmon fry." He, however, 

 admitted that the evidence as a naturalist "would have led him to decide, as a point of science, 

 that par, or at least certain of that family, were the young of salmon." Another appeal was now 

 made on July 20th, 1870, that as the pars "were the young of salmon, or salmon fry, the sheriff- 

 substitute ought to have given effect to said proof by a judgment against the respondent." The 

 case was tried at Perth, September 7th, 1870, and the defendant was finally convicted. 



June 4th, 1872, an individual was summoned before the sheriff in so far as, on the 24th of 

 April last, he did, on the right bank of the river Allan, by means of a rod and Une, take or have 

 in his possession six smolts or salmon fry. As the first witness observed, salmon fry meant the 

 smolt of the salmon proper. The yellow-fin was the sea trout smolt. One witness, Mr. G. Young, 

 of Berwick, deposed that the orange-fins of the Tweed were identical with the yellow-fins of the 

 Allan, and that they were the par or young of the sea trout. Very extensive experiments had been 

 made in the I'iver with regard to these fish. He was a Tweed Commissioner, and also belonged to 

 the experimental committee. They had marked these fish for a gi'eat number of years, and had 

 traced them into all stages of their growth, from the egg to the full-grown bull or sea trout. The 

 orange-fin is the young of the sea trout. They were known as " black-tails," just before passing 

 from the orange-fin into the whitling or bull trout. Mr. Bruce remarked : " They have par to 

 account for the young salmon, the small yellow trout to account for the young of the yellow trout, 

 and it seemed to him that the yeUow-tin could be nothing else than the young of the sea-trout." 

 Dr. Giinther deposed that " there is a distinction between the young of Salmo salar (the salmon) 

 and a member of the Farios (trout). In the par of the former I have counted as many as nine or 

 ten cross bars, and in the latter only six or seven." " I am not quite sure but that milt and ova 

 might be found in a hybrid. It has been found in pars, and my theory is that where this is so, 

 the fish is the product of a hen salmon and a male river trout, and it was frequently found that a 

 hen salmon was spawning on the same gravel bed with a male river trout. This hybrid would 

 come to maturity sooner than a pure bred salmon, and thus give the appearance of ova or milt 

 being found in the par." 



Mr. Buist, Stormontfteld Piscicultural Experiments, 1867, altered his mind with respect to 

 pars, due to his having been engaged at the Stormontfield ponds, where experiments were being 

 carried on, and affording him the opportunity of observing the transformations in the par with age. 

 After remarking that at one time he was an advocate of the popular dogma that the par was a 

 distinct fish by itself, one proof being that in the month of November, 1832, a male par had been 

 brought to him with the milt flowing out. " The par in question was really the young salmon of 

 the second year, which bad not then gone to the sea. At Stormontfield we have repeatedly seen 

 a young salmon, which remained in the rearing pond till the time of migration in the second year, 

 though not the size of a man's finger, yet with such a state of milt in the breeding season that we 

 have impregnated eggs of the full-grown salmon with it, and thereby produced young fish. Such 

 is not the case with the sister fish of the second year in the pond, as not even the rudiments of 

 roe can be traced in them." 



* The whole of the fry, numbering about 200,000, were the produce of 19 male and 31 female 

 salmon spawned in 1859, some remained as par while others migrated as smolts. 



t While as to variation in size among par, Peter of the Pools remarked, in the Field of April 

 25th, 1863, " as another instance in the strange anomaly in the growth of salmon, I send three 

 specimens taken from the Stormontfield pond on April 1st. As the label on the bottle tells, they 

 were spawned from salmon roe about the end of December, 1861 ; they came to life and were 

 hatched in April, 1862 ; they have been fed in the same pond, and you will observe what an 

 amazing difference there is in the size and growth, the largest being 6J inches and weighing 646 

 grains: the second 3 J inches, weighing 135 grains; and the third 2J inches, weighing 26 grains. 

 No. 3 is a tiny little creature with the par marks on it ; no. 2 has the incipient scales on it ; and 

 no. 1 with these scales far advanced. I have no doubt that at least no. 1, had he been left in the 

 ponds, would with others of like size, or even smaller, have gone to the sea this year, and returned 

 as a grilse. No. 2 is doubtful and may perhaps have remained till another season ; while no. 3, 

 would we allow him, would keep his habitation in the pond." 



J Ramsbottom, The Salmon and its Artifieial Propagation, 1854, remarked of these fish, that 

 "at eighteen months of age, an ounce and a half is their average weight; nor do they much 

 exceed two ounces in weight, and seven inches in length, when about to assume the migratory 

 dress at the age of two years and a month or thereabouts " (p. 17). " Two years after their 



