78 The Natural History of the Salmon, 



Mr. H. Cholmondeley Pennell, in his 

 " Angler Naturalist," broaches another solution to 

 the question. Alluding to what erroneously are 

 called barren fish, he says : " The appearance of 

 these so-called barren salmon at a time when most 

 fish are spawning or are just recovering from the 

 process, illustrates what I believe to be a most 

 important fact connected with the history of the 

 Salmon, and one which does not appear to have 

 been hitherto understood, although following as a 

 natural corollary to the propositions of Mr. Ffennell, 

 and hinted at by Mr. Brown in his account of the 

 Stormontfield experiment, viz. : that the principle 

 of a divided migration is not confined to the Parrs 

 on going to the sea, or to the Smolts on their return 

 from it, some as Grilse and some as spring Salmon, 

 but that it also extends to the old and adult fish after 

 spawning, one portion of these latter coming back 

 into the rivers during the following summer, and 

 the rest not until the spring succeeding it ; in other 

 words (and this is the gist of the whole), that 

 at least a proportion of salmon spawn only every 

 alternate year.'' 



May not the spring salmon be accounted for in the 

 following manner.? Are they not the early spawners 

 (females) } say those which spawn in October (it is 

 very rare to find any salmon spawning earlier than 

 this month) and early in November, and that many 



