SALMON. 41 



of attraction as a Salmon. What an ample space the 

 above streams present for the destruction of the fry ! 

 And not only are they killed by the rod, each urchin, 

 perhaps, taking eight or ten dozen a day, but by various 

 other means in a wholesale manner. 



Mr. William Laidlaw *, a gentleman mentioned with 

 so much merited praise in the best biographical work 

 extant, perhaps, who formerly lay under the general 

 misapprehension regarding the Parr, writes to me as 

 follows : — 



" So great was the number of Parrs in the rivulet of 

 Douglas Burn, that I have seen five dozen taken out 

 of one small pool with aid of a pair of old blankets ; and 

 I and my playfellows, when boys, have committed great 

 havoc by damming up one of the streams, where the 

 rivulet happened to divide into two, and laying the 

 other as dry as we could. The Parrs were so numerous, 

 that we used to make the water white with the milt 

 of those we killed. When the water was lowering, the 

 poor creatures, instead of swimming downwards, where 

 they would have had a chance of safety, all kept smat- 

 tering upwards, and we actually killed them by hundreds. 

 But a fact, which I could not account for, was this, 

 — namely, that they appeared to come up the rivulet 

 during the early part of the summer only ; but after the 

 month of September there were very few to be seen, 

 and not any in October ; and when this discovery relative 



* I am greatly indebted to this gentleman for his communi- 

 cations respecting T. Purdie. 



