172 APPENDIX. 



virtually finished before the time when grilse make their 

 appearance ; and so few of these frequent that river that they 

 are not calculated upon as part of its commercial produce. 

 Other rivers, such as the Oykell, produce very few salmon, 

 and these of indifferent quality, but depends almost entirely 

 upon its grilses, which it produces in shoals. This is also the 

 case in a very marked degree in the rivers in Ireland. 



M. Have you at any time marked grilse with wire or 

 otherwise for the purpose of ascertaining whether they grow to 

 be salmon ? 



H. Upwards of thirty years ago I marked a number of 

 grilse by tying a wire round their tails. Three years after- 

 wards some of them were caught with the wire round the tail, 

 and grilse still. I have read of grilse being marked by other 

 people, and some of those grilse afterwards caught weighing 

 fourteen pounds, and called salmon. Until, however, grilse 

 are found to have grown to be salmon beyond that weight, I 

 must still continue to believe them to be grilse, though mis- 

 taken for salmon, as fish allowed to be grilse, weighing fourteen 

 pounds, are said to be caught in the month of July ; particu- 

 larly as my present object is to enunciate principles, and riot to 

 controvert the results of ill-devised experiments, such as the 

 Stormontfield ponds, or markings at any other places or rivers, 

 of salmon or smolts. Similar markings have been practised, 

 to my knowledge, for upwards of thirty years, without arriving 

 at any very practical conclusion. 



M . How then do fishermen distinguish salmon from grilse, 

 if they have no distinctive peculiarities, and are not always 

 regulated by weight ? 



If. They affirm that a grilse has a younger appearance than 

 a salmon ; but without any external guiding index there can 

 be no certainty in determining a point where one man's opinion 

 is as good as another's. The only distinction I could ever 

 ascertain is, that the tail-fin of a grilse tapers off to a finer 

 edge than in the salmon : this distinction is observable in the 

 smolts also. 



M. How do you account for the variety in size of grilse, 

 some being so much larger than others ? 



