368 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



The second is when it puts on the silvery scales of the grilse, 

 which occurs when it is about to emigrate to the sea. It ap- 

 pears as if the little pet, when in the parr state, required some 

 provision against the novel effects of salt water which it is 

 about to encounter, for nature furnishes it with a new suit 

 of scales, bright and silvery as those of the parent salmon. 

 These begin to develop themselves just previously to the 

 first migration of the fish. The scales form apparently over 

 the old skin, and in doing so they obscure the parr marks, 

 and the fish becomes a smolt, or a miniature grilse ; but that 

 it is the same fish may easily be seen by rubbing off a few of 

 those new scales, when the parr marks are plainly seen which 

 were hidden beneath them. These scales are at this time 

 very lightly attached to the skin, and can be easily detached, 

 coming off even by the mere handling of the fish ; and this 

 insecurity of the attachment of the scales continues through- 

 out the whole period of grilsehood, or until the fish becomes 

 a veritable and mature salmon, when whether it develops a 

 new suit of scales is not known, but the scales certainly be- 

 come much more firmly fixed to the skin, and are far more 

 difficult to remove. But the point in debate is how long the 

 parr remains in the river before it becomes a smolt. Now 

 experiment has shown us thus much, viz., that a large por- 

 tion of the parr become smolts in about fifteen rnonths, that 

 is, supposing them to have been hatched from the egg in the 

 fall, or say in the winter. They live in the river over the 

 next autumn, and do not become smolts and migrate to sea 

 until the next succeeding spring. It has been found that a 

 very large proportion of them do not become smolts and mi- 

 grate even then, but stay in the river yet another year, and 

 so do not put on the smolt scale and migrate until the next 

 succeeding spring. Thus some remain in the rivers altogeth- 

 er two years and two or three months, and' others remain 

 even for another year still, and do not migrate till the third 

 year. These facts for a long time puzzled naturalists, and 

 gave rise to the supposition that there was another fish of 



