CHAP, v.] A PROBLEM. 185 



said he, " when I assure them, on the faith of long experience 

 and observation, and on the word of one who can have no 

 interest in instilling an untruth into their minds, that every 

 insignificant parr with which the Cockney fisher fills his 

 basket is a salmon lost ?" These crude attempts of the im- 

 pulsive shepherd of Ettrick and he was hotly opposed by Mr. 

 Buist, now of Stormontfield were not without their fruits ; 

 indeed they were so successful as quite to convince him that 

 parr were young salmon in their first stage. 



As I have had occasion to mention the opinions of James 

 Hogg on the salmon question, I may be allowed to state here 

 that the following amusing bit of dialogue on the habits of the 

 salmon once took place between the Ettrick Shepherd and a 

 friend : 



Shepherd " I maintain that ilka saumon comes aye back 

 again frae the sea till spawn in its ain water." 



Friend " Toots,* toots, Jamie ! hoo can it manage till do 

 that ; hoo, in the name o' wonder, can a fish, travelling up a 

 turbid water frae the sea, know when it reaches the entrance 

 to its birthplace, or that it has arrived at the tributary that 

 was its cradle?" 



Shepherd "Man, the 'great wonder to me is no hoo the 

 fish get back, but hoo they find their way till the sea first ava, 

 seein' that they've never been there afore !" 



The parr question, however, was determined in a rather more 

 formal mode than that adopted by the author of " Bonny Kil- 

 menny." Mr. Shaw, a forester in the employment of the Duke 

 of Buccleuch, took up the case of the parr in 1833, and suc- 

 ceeded in solving the problem. In order that he might watch 

 the progressive growth of the parr, Mr. Shaw began by captur- 

 ing seven of these little fishes on the llth of July 1833 ; these 

 he placed in a pond supplied by a stream of excellent water, 

 where they grew and flourished apace till early in April 1834, 

 between which date and the 17th of the following May they 



