92 THE SEA-TROUT 



parr of a stream flowing gently through rich agricultural land and of 

 those of a rocky barren stream which hurries tumultuously down a 

 Highland glen. This initial difference persists through Ufe and marks 

 the well-conditioned or ill-conditioned types of sea-trout characteristic 

 of the respective types of stream. 



On this subject of the relative growth of salmon, sea-trout and trout, 

 Mr. Knut Dahl has much that is interesting and suggestive to say 

 regarding Norwegian fish,^ and I cannot conceive that, were equally 

 full investigation to be made regarding British fish, any great 

 discrepancy would be discovered between the results obtained in 

 Scotland and those obtained by him in Norway. 



In Scotland, as every angler is aware, it is illegal to take salmon 

 parr, or, as the Act expresses it, " any smolt or salmon fry," and as 

 sea-trout are "salmon" in the sense of the Salmon Acts, the provisions 

 on this head apply to them also. The section of the particular Statute 

 which deals with this offence relates also to offences concerning spawn 

 and spawning fish, and therefore I insert it fully here in the accom- 

 panying note.^ 



While it is thus illegal to take sea-trout parr the difficulty that meets 

 the angler everywhere and at all times is to distinguish young salmon 

 and sea-trout from the young of common trout, because, as there is no 

 law yet in Scotland prohibiting the capture of trout however small, tKe 



1. " The Age and Growth of Salmon and Trout in Norway as shown bv their Scales," Knut 

 Dahl (1910). Trans, by Ian Baillie. Ed. by J. Arthur Hutton and H. T. Sheringham for the 

 Salmon and Trout Association. 



2. "Every person who shall wilfully take or destroy any .smolt or salmon fry, or shall buy, 

 sell, or expo.se for sale, or have in his possession, the same, or shall place any device or engine for 

 the purpose of obstructing the passage of the same, or shall wilf\illy injure the same, or shall 

 wilfully injure or disturb any salmon spawn, or disturb any spawning bed, or any bank or shallow 

 in which the spawn of salmon may be, or during the annual close time shall obstruct or impede 

 salmon in their passage to any such bed, bank, or shallow, .shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 

 five pounds for every such offence, and shall forfeit every rod, line, net, device, or engine used in 

 committing any such offence, and shall forfeit any smolt or salmon fry that may be found in 

 his possession; but nothing herein contained shall apply to acts done for the purpose of artificial 

 propagation of salmiui or other scientific purpose, or in the course of cleaning or repairing any 

 dam or mill lade, or in the cour.se of the exercise of rights of property in the bed of any river or 

 stream : Provided also, that the district board may, with the consent of all the proprietors of 

 salmon fi.^^beries in any river or estuary, adopt such means as they think fit for preventing the 

 ingress of salmon into narrow streams in which they or the spawning beds are from the nature 

 of the channel liable to be de.stroyed, but always .so that no water rights used or enjoyed for the 

 purposes of manufactures, or agricultural purposes or drainage, shall be interfered with thereby. 

 Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868, 31 and 32 Vict. c. 123, Sec. XIX. 



