130 GENERA AND SPECIES. 



or beyond it. The snout is longer in the male than in the female, 

 and in the breeding season the lower jaw becomes hooked, so that 

 the mouth cannot be completely closed. The colour is a steel blue, 

 with crosses and round spots above the lateral line and on the upper 

 half of the head, particularly in the female ; the dorsal, caudal, and 

 pectorals are blackish, the ventrals and anal are whitish. The male 

 is spotted and streaked with orange during the breeding season ; the 

 young, known as parr, have broad, dark bands extending from the 

 back down the sides. When first hatched, the Salmon is known as 

 an alevin ; in a few months the alevin becomes a parr, and the bands 

 become conspicuous. In its second or third spring the parr marks 

 disappear, and the head and body become silvery, preparatory to 

 starting for the sea. In this silvery stage the salmon is known as a 

 smolt. The smolt returns from the sea next year as a grilse, having 

 grown surprisingly. From its next sea trip it returns as a salmon. 

 A kelt is a salmon that has spawned ; if a male, it is often called a 

 kipper (from its hooked jaw) ; if a female, it is known either as a 

 kelt or a slat. A grilse-kelt is a salmon that has spawned in the 

 grilse stage. The salmon is " anadromous," that is, it lives both in 

 salt and fresh water. It is as much a fish of the sea as it is a fish of 

 the river. It ascends the rivers mainly, if not entirely, for the pur- 

 pose of spawning, and in summer is found close in along the coast, 

 gradually assembling at the mouths of the streams it intends 

 entering when the time comes. It would seem to be the fact that, 

 whenever possible, each salmon returns to the river from which it 

 first reached the sea. To what part of the sea they retire on their 

 outward migration is at present unknown. Salmon ova will not 

 develop in sea water ; but that the fish can be reared entirely in 

 fresh water has been abundantly proved by experiment, and is, 

 indeed, obvious from the existence of salmon in waters uncon- 

 nected with the sea. Nearly all the salmon that comes to market 

 is caught in nets in the lower reaches of the rivers, or even along 

 the coast in the vicinity ; the number caught by rod and line is but 

 a small proportion of the total. In Frank Buckland's Fish Museum 

 there is a cast of a Tay salmon which weighed 70 Ibs., and is 53 

 inches long; it is apparently the largest about which there can 

 be no mistake. 



The other British representatives of the genus Salmo are the 

 trouts and chars, which differ so little in extreme examples that it 

 would seem there is really only one species of each. In this list is 

 included all between which any definite distinctions could be dis- 

 covered, and we leave them to be ranked as species or varieties as 

 opinion may dictate. It is a thorny question, and is merely men- 

 tioned as accounting for the unusual order in which it became 

 easiest to sort them out. 



The Loch Leven Trout has from 12 to 14 rays in the dorsal, from 

 10 to 12 in the anal, 19 in the caudal, 12 to 14 in the pectorals, and 

 9 in the ventrals. The fins vary in shape and size. In colour it is 

 dark, and rather green or grey along the back, and there are small 

 black ocellated spots on the head and gill covers, and black spots 

 and crosses above the lateral line, except in the fore part, where 

 they extend down to the pectorals. This fish used to be confined 



