226 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
own skins, began to contrive conundrums for their disciples, 
and to launch problems of the chimera-bombinans-in-vacuo type. 
So in the matter of salmon, it sometimes has been men of 
science and system who boggled over the sound conclusions 
arrived at in the course of their vocation by plain, practical 
fishermen. Let no man underrate the value of study in 
museum and laboratory, but experience has shown that it is 
apt to grow top-heavy, unless it is supported by the humbler 
labours of the field naturalist. Thus we find that excellent 
ichthyologist William Yarrell solemnly devoting a chapter of 
his British Fishes (1836) to the parr, or samlet, which he 
followed Willughby, Ray, and Pennant in classifying as a 
distinct adult species under the title of Salmo salmulus. Yet, 
within a very moderate distance of his own newspaper shop in 
Westminster, he enjoyed opportunities of studying the creature 
which are denied to the London naturalist of our day. 
“ The skegger of the Thames,” quoth he, “is the parr, or 
samlet. Laleham, between Staines and Chertsey, where the 
water is shallow, formerly afforded the greatest quantity ; forty 
and even fifty dozen have been taken in one day by a skilful 
fly-fisher ; but the numerous gas and other manufactories on 
the bank of the river are considered so greatly to have affected 
the quality of the water, that a salmon or a skegger in the 
Thames is now but rarely seen.” 
One need scarcely doubt that the “ skilful fly-fisher”” thus 
modestly referred to was Yarrell himself, seeing that during his 
father’s life William is known to have spent at least as much 
of his time angling on the river as selling newspapers across 
the counter. 
Sir William Jardine, another ichthyologist of high attain- 
ment, was equally confident in controversy. He studied parr 
in the Tweed, and, after dismissing as groundless the belief 
entertained by some ichthyologists and by most practical 
fishermen that parr were the young of salmon, summed up 
as follows in 1835 :— 
