226 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



own skins, began to contrive conundrums for their disciples, 

 and to launch problems of the chim^era-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 : 



