22 HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 



conducted by competent persons, to be nothing 

 more nor less than the salmon itself in the infant 

 stage of its existence. It is only within a very 

 few years that this fact has been ascertained or 

 at least promulgated and the honour of the dis- 

 covery, by actual experiment, is due to Mr. Shaw, 

 manager of the Duke of Buccleugh's salmon fish- 

 eries, in Scotland. This gentleman proves and 

 his statements in the main have been confirmed by 

 the subsequent experiments of other qualified ob- 

 servers that what is commonly called the parr is 

 the salmon-fry in its first stage of growth; that 

 in this state, as a parr, it remains in the river in 

 which it was hatched for a whole year; that 

 during the second year its outer covering of scales 

 is moulted off, as it were, and reveals it in the 

 character of the graveling, or smoult, which was 

 formerly supposed to be the first stage of the 

 salmon's life ; that when about two years old, 

 being still in the dress of the smoult, and not 

 above six inches long, it descends to the sea, and 

 in the course of a few months or weeks re-enters 

 the river as a grilse or salmon peal, weighing from 

 two to five pounds more or less according to the 

 time it has passed in the salt water; and that 

 on its return from a second visit to the sea, after 

 the lapse of another year, it becomes a veritable 



