GROWTH OF SALMON-FRY. 159 



mon," if we are allowed to apply such an expression to 

 a fifteen-pounder, a " huge" increase, at all events, from 

 about two grains, the weight of salmon-fry three days 

 old. Mr Buckland forgets the following observations 

 of Mr Ashworth of Cheadle, near Manchester : 



" The fry, at three days old, is about two grains in 

 weight ; at sixteen months old it has increased to two 

 ounces, or 480 times its first weight ; at twenty months 

 old, after the smolt has been a few months in the sea, 

 it has become a grilse of eight and a half pounds, it 

 has increased 68 times in three or four months ; at two 

 years and eight months old it becomes a salmon of twelve 

 to fifteen pounds in weight ; after which its increased 

 rate of growth has not been ascertained ; but by the 

 time it becomes, thirty pounds in weight, it has in- 

 creased 115,200 times the weight it was at first. I do 

 not suppose there is any other animal that increases so 

 rapidly and at so little cost, and that becomes such a 

 valuable article of food/' 



The anomalous diversity of growth in young salmon, 

 so very remarkably illustrated at Storm ontfield, is, we 

 think, still a mystery. In the office of the conservator 

 of the Tay fishings were three specimens spawned from 

 salmon-roe about the end of December 1861, hatched 

 in April 1862, fed in the same pond, and yet exhibiting 

 these peculiarities. The first weighs 646 grains ; the 

 second, 135 grains ; the third, 26 grains. Our worthy 

 old friend " Peter of the Pools," alias Mr Eobert Buist, 

 Perth, being desirous to have the opinion of a distin- 

 guished naturalist as to the cause of this strange ano- 

 maly, sent these fishlings to Mr Buckland, who thus 

 replies : " I submitted the specimens and letter of 

 < Peter of the Pools ' to the scientific meeting of the 

 Zoological Society. J. Gould, Esq., F.E.S., and Dr 

 Giinther of the British Museum, gave it as their opin- 

 ion that, provided always the evidence of their being of 

 the same age is well proved, this was simply a case of 

 cause and effect the bigger fish being the stronger 



