NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PAR. 185 



the par, as compared with the well-known habits 

 of the salmon fry, will destroy the first of these 

 theories ; and the second certainly cannot be 

 maintained by a single known fact, sufficiently 

 strong to support it. 



In tracing the habits of the salmon fry, than 

 which nothing can possibly be more constant and 

 decided, it will be found, that they are emanci- 

 pated from the egg or roe of the parent fish, 

 about the latter end- of March, or the beginning 

 of April, a few days earlier or later according 

 to the nature of the river, and peculiarity of the 

 season ; but prior to that period, not a single fish 

 will be found in the river ; although a few days 

 afterwards, they may be taken by hundreds in 

 every stream of a good salmon river ; there they 

 will continue, for six weeks or two months, at the 

 end of which time the successive spring floods 

 will have so completely taken every fish to the 

 sea, that not a single one of the many thousands 

 that were bred in the river, will be discovered. 

 During this period, their growth is very rapid; 

 indeed so much so, that during the last few days 

 of their stay, they have been frequently taken in 

 the tide-way (the tide being out), a quarter of a 

 pound weight ; although, a week or two before, 

 it would have been difficult to have obtained one 

 weighing an ounce. In appearance, they so 

 closely resemble the parent fish, in its highest 



