16 TUB TROUT 



silvery attire of the salmon a short time before their final descent 

 to the ocean. 



Not intending to dispute one word of what Mr. Shaw has stated 

 as to the salmon fry of the Scottish rivers, I cannot altogether 

 pass over the subject without stating lhat in several of the rivers 

 of the southern parts of our Island, it can be most satisfactorily 

 proved not only that the growth of the salmon fry is remarkably 

 rapid, but also that by far the greater part of them, descend 

 to the sea the same season in which they are hatched, as the few 

 straggling parrs that are found in the fresh water of those rivers 

 during the summer months, even supposing them to be actually 

 the young of the salmon, form a very small portion as compared 

 with the myriads that proceed to the sea ; added to which the 

 parrs are generally found of at lea.st twice the size the salmon fry 

 are when the great bulk of them take their departure. In the 

 Camel in Cornwall, for instance, the river for several miles be- 

 tween Dunmeer and Wadebridge, during the month of April, is 

 literally swarminjg with salmon fry; in the early part of the month 

 their bulk does not exceed that of a good sized minnow, but which 

 is nearly quadrupled by the first week in May. They seem always 

 to keep in shoals, each individual fish bearing the same proportion in 

 size to the other. During this period all the boys in the neighbourhood, 

 and some who are old enough to know better, surround the banks : 

 a few with proper rods and tackle, but the majority with basket 

 rods or hazle sticks, and some even with coarse thread and crook- 

 ed pins : and by this means several hundreds are daily taken ; 

 though the numbers are not apparently diminished by this contin- 

 ued warfare, till almost simultaneously the whole district is depopu- 

 lated, the entire mass having moved off to the sea. This grand 

 migration generally takes place in the first or second week in 

 May, being governed in a great degree by the weather, according 

 to a well-known saying in that neighbourhood : 



" The first hard rain in the month of May, 

 Washes all the fry away to sea." 



The word " sea," pronounced "say" in the provincial accent of 

 the county, making the verses rhyme together, though nothing can 

 add to their reason, as they are true to the very letter ; for after 

 the first thorough May shower, which in this part of the world is 



