CHAP, v.] FROM THE PARR TO THE SMOLT. 181 



None of our naturalists have yet attempted to elucidate 

 that mystery of salmon life which converts one-half of the fish 

 into sea-going smolts while as yet the other moiety remain as 

 parr. It has been investigated so far at the breeding-ponds 

 at Stormontfield, but without resolving the question. There 

 is another point of doubt as to salmon life which I shall 

 also have a word to say about namely, whether or not that 

 fish makes two visits annually to the sea ; likewise whether 

 it be probable that a smolt remains in the salt water for 

 nearly a year before it becomes a grilse. As a salmon only 

 stays, as is popularly supposed, a very short time in the salt 

 water, and as it is one of the quickest swimming fishes we 

 have, so that it is able to reach a distant river in a very short 

 space of time, it is most desirable that we should know what 

 it does with itself when it is not migrating from one water to 

 the other ; because, according to the opinion of some natural- 

 ists, it would speedily become so deteriorated in the river as 

 to be unequal to the slightest exertion. 



The mere facts in the biography of the salmon are not 

 very numerous ; it is the fiction and mystery with which the 

 life of this particular fish has been invested by those ignorant 

 of its history that has made it a greater object of interest than it 

 would otherwise have become. This will be obvious as I briefly 

 trace the amount of controversy and state the arguments which 

 have been expended on the three divisions of its life. 



THE PARR CONTROVERSY. None of the controversies con- 

 cerning the growth of the. salmon have been so hotly carried 

 on or have proved so fertile in argument as the parr dispute. 

 At certain seasons of the year, most notably in the months of 

 spring and early summer, our salmon streams and their tri- 

 butaries become crowded, as if by magic, with a pretty little 

 fish, known in Scotland as the parr, and in England as the 

 brandling, the peel, the samlet, etc. The parr was at one 

 time so wonderfully plentiful, that farmers and cottars who 



