RECENT RESEARCH UPON SALMON 227 



" The greatest uncertainty has latterly resolved itself into 

 whether the parr was distinct, or a variety or young of the 

 common trout S. fario. With the migratory salmon it has 

 no connection whatever. ... I have no hesitation whatever in 

 considering the parr not only distinct, but one of the best and 

 most constantly marked species we have, and that it ought to 

 remain in our systems as the Salmo salmulus of Ray." 



Of course, all this haziness has been cleared away by the 

 labours of pisciculturists ; parr have been reared by the million 

 from the ova of salmon, but the curious part of the matter is 

 that no doubt seems to have arisen about the identity of parr 

 with young salmon until men of science began to mell with 

 them. About smolts, at all events, our early legislators spoke 

 with no uncertain voice, and although a smolt preserved in 

 spirits in a museum may seem a very different fish from a part 

 in the next bottle, it is difficult to see how any practical 

 fisherman could entertain any doubt that they were the same 

 creatures in different stages, seeing that the little fellows may 

 be taken any day in April or May in every stage of transition, 

 from the spotted and barred river dress to the silvery jacket 

 they assume on moving seaward. And so in the thirteenth 

 century Alexander III. of Scotland enacted that " smolts sould 

 not be taken or destroyed be nettes or other ingynes at mylne 

 dams fra the middes of Aprill to the nativitie of Saint John 

 the Baptist (June 24th)," which covers the whole period when 

 smolts can be found in any river. Before becoming smolts, 

 i.e., before they assume in April the migratory livery of silver, 

 they are spotted parr, and they are all in the sea before 

 Midsummer Day. 



No better example could be found of the auxiliary value 

 to the scientific student of the mere sportsman, provided he 

 has brains as well as eyes in his head, than that afforded by 

 William Scrope, the inimitable author of Days and Nights of 

 Salmon-Fishing (1838). Many years before Shaw's experiments 

 had proved conclusively that parr were immature salmon, 



