PUZZLE FOR NATURALISTS. 75 



worth was 300. Next year, those captured as salmon 

 would be much more valuable ; so that, as a commercial 

 speculation, the experiment will prove remunerating, 

 provided it be carried out on an extensive scale. The 

 hope of the Tay-fishing proprietors, that their gain 

 would consist of all they could capture of about 300,000 

 grilses, was frustrated by an unexpected occurrence. 

 After the 7th June migration from the pond ceased, 

 and thus there was left in it apparently one half of 

 the fish whose departure and return the same season 

 had been confidently reckoned on. Thus, while one 

 portion of the same hatching was being captured in 

 the river as beautifully-grown grilses, another portion 

 was still in the pond, tiny creatures of about three 

 inches long, and not more than an ounce in weight ! 

 When we visited them in August, so numerous were 

 they, and so lively their movements, that the surface of 

 the pond appeared to be dotted, as it were, with drops of 

 rain. They took the fly-hook with the greatest avidity, 

 and having captured one, we found it plump and vig- 

 orous, but a veritable parr, totally free of the silver 

 scales of the smolt. At the end of November they ex- 

 hibited the same appearances. Mr Buist, the intelli- 

 gent superintendent of the Tay fishings, assures us that 

 u no other fish, nor even the seed of them, could by 

 possibility get into the ponds ;" and he also mentions 

 the singular fact, that in these little parr " the males 

 have the milt as much developed, in proportion to the 

 size of the fish, as their brethren of the same age, 7 to 

 10 Ib. weight ; while the females have their ova so un- 

 developed that the granulations can scarcely be dis- 

 covered by a lens of some power." 



It is evident that the opposing views of Messrs Shaw 

 and Young are partly right and partly wrong. It is 

 not true that only a small portion of salmon-fry become 

 smolts at the end of their first year, as Mr Shaw sup- 

 poses ; neither do they all become so, as Mr Young con- 

 fidently asserts. 



