186 ON THE BREEDING OF SALMON. 



set in, and continued with, such intensity for a suc- 

 cession of many weeks, that the wild-fowl generally, 

 and the wild-ducks in particular, suffered severe priva- 

 tions, and in the course of their wanderings in search 

 of food, they unfortunately stumbled on my boxes of 

 ova, one lot of which they wholly devoured, to the 

 amount of five hundred. My feelings of mortification 

 and disappointment, on the discovery of this unforeseen 

 disaster, may readily be conceived. However, on exa- 

 mining my other box, I found there were still a few 

 remaining, which I carefully collected and put into a 

 place of greater safety. The progressive growth of these, 

 from the impregnation of the ova up to the age of 

 eighteen months, has also been uniformly the same 

 as of those produced by male and female adult parents, 

 and reared under similar circumstances. 



' f As a further illustration of the singular economy 

 of the salmon in their native streams, I have yet to 

 detail another experiment or two, not less interesting 

 than conclusive. In December last (1838), I took a 

 female salmon from the river weighing eleven pounds, 

 and four male parrs from the same spawning-bed. 

 After impregnating four different lots of the ova, one 

 lot to each individual parr, I placed the four parrs in a 

 pond where they remained until the following May, at 

 which period they assumed the migratory dress. The 

 ova were placed in streams to which no other fish had 

 access, and where they became mature in a similarly pro- 

 gressive manner to those already detailed, thus clearly 

 demonstrating that the young salmon of eighteen 

 months old, while yet in the parr or early state, actu- 

 ally perform the duties of a male parent before quitting 

 the river. 



" While the males of the three several broods which 



