8 THE LIFE OF THE SALMON 



a strong argument in favour of allowing all smolts to 

 get to the sea. It is much easier to accustom a young 

 parr or a Loch Leven trout to salt water than to 

 accustom a smolt to fresh w^ater. 



It has to be noted, however, that the eggs of the 

 fertile females of the Howietoun experiments were 

 not fertilised by milt from male salmon reared 

 under the same conditions, but by milt from Loch 

 Leven trout. This materially detracts from the value 

 of the result. Within recent years a limited number 

 of the smolts reared in the Duke of Richmond and 

 Gordon's ponds at the mouth of the Spey were found 

 to contain well-developed ova, and an experiment 

 was made as to the possibility of rearing brood from 

 smolt eggs. It has long been known that male parr 

 or smolts are occasionally sexually mature. So far 

 as I am aware, the occurrence of ripe female smolts 

 amongst artificially reared and hand-fed salmon had 

 not previously been noted. Aripe male smolt not being 

 procurable when the ripe females were first found, 

 fertilisation was satisfactorily accomplished by using 

 milt from an adult salmon. The fry hatched out and 

 grew quite normally, and, as I was able to note from 

 specimens kindly sent me by Mr. Kae, the superin- 

 tendent of the Duke's salmon fisheries, were at the 

 age of one year quite indistinguishable from the 

 salmon fry produced from the eggs of adult 

 females. 



The following year, however, when ripe female 

 smolts were again discovered, care was taken to 

 obtain ripe male smolts for purposes of fertilisation- 

 On this occasion, although at first impregnation 



