186 SALMON. 



it cannot be said their very young condition, they are said to 

 have aspired to pair with a fiill-grown female for the continuance 

 of the race; a Parr of five or six inches in length producing 

 so much of the milt as will render fertile a quantity of roe 

 that is more than equal to the bulk of its own body. It is 

 known indeed, or believed, that some of these Salmon Parrs, at 

 least in the north, will remain in fresh water through the summer, 

 while others of the same brood have emigrated; but the causes 

 of this are still undetermined. It is, however, an established 

 fact that when confined within a narrow range, the growth of 

 fishes generally will be stinted to the dimensions of their dwellings ; 

 and it is further certain that every unnatural condition has an 

 influence on their development, and perhaps more especially on 

 those of the Salmon family; which circumstance may go far to 

 account for some remarkable changes of structure and deficiencies 

 that we shall have to point out in the history of the Trout. 



We hesitate, therefore, at present to adopt the conclusions 

 which appear to prevail on this subject, as if they were of 

 universal application; and we may be excused the rather for 

 these doubts, since some attentive observers of the experiments 

 on which these conclusions have been built, have shewn a 

 remarkable aptitude in changing their opinions on apparently 

 insufficient grounds, and several of the experiments which have 

 been prominently put forward are pronounced by others as 

 eminently mistaken or inconclusive. 



As illustrative of these remarks, some young Salmon were 

 kept in a fresh-water lake in Norway for five years, and so 

 much was their growth stunted by this confinement, that at the 

 end of that time each one weighed only one pound and three 

 quarters. Placed in a large lake after a few years some of them 

 grew to weigh three pounds and a half, and others five pounds. 

 Sea Trout similarly kept were of still slower growth. Mr. 

 Brown, to whom reference will again be made, makes some 

 mention of a young Salmon which remained in the fishpond 

 for five years, of which three had passed before it had acquired 

 the shining scales; but he does not assign any cause for this 

 delay, nor does there any appear in the case of a Trout, 

 presently to be mentioned, except the single fact of confinement 

 within a very limited sjjace. 



It is curious that the habits of the Salmon while at sea are 



