BREEDING-BOXES. 141 



teen parrs in the Tay, he kept them confined in a stream 

 of running water. By May the whole of them had be- 

 come smolts ; and so desirous were some of them to 

 find their way to the sea, that they leaped out of their 

 confinement, and were found dead on the bank. This 

 having convinced him that the parr was indeed the 

 young salmon before its assumption of the silvery scales 

 of the smolt, he entered with earnestness into the arti- 

 ficial-propagation scheme when started at Stormont- 

 field, and was present and assisted at most of the mani- 

 pulations. His little work is most trustworthy, and 

 deserving to be carefully perused by all interested in 

 the natural history of the salmon, or desirous to under- 

 stand the artificial mode of rearing it. The light which the 

 Stormontfield experiment has thrown upon many obscure 

 points connected with salmon is so important, and its 

 value in demonstrating the commercial worth of salmon- 

 rearing is so great, as to have attracted the attention of 

 illustrious naturalists at home and abroad. Stormont- 

 field has been inspected by visitors from France and 

 Spain. Mr Brown states that the proprietors of the 

 Tay fisheries were induced to undertake the artificial 

 rearing of salmon in consequence of the representations 

 of the late Dr Esdaile. This is true ; but we happen 

 to know that he constantly deplored the contracted 

 scale of their operations, and insisted that, if intended 

 to pay, salmon-rearing should be by millions, and not 

 by five or six hundred thousand a-year. Only 500 

 has been expended on 300 boxes, laid out in parallel 

 rows, with a path between each, 12 boxes being in the 

 row, each box 6 feet long by 1 foot 6 inches, and 1 foot 

 deep. The fall from the upper to the lower end of each 

 box is 2 inches, and 2 feet in all, so as to allow the 

 water to flow freely through them ; but experience has 

 proved that the fall is not sufficient, and that the quan- 

 tity of water discharged from the feeding-pipe is too 

 small. From these boxes the fry drop into a lower 

 canal, where they are regularly fed with minced sheep's 



