STORMONTFIELD EXPERIMENT. 63 



has handled a smoult must have observed that 

 the smoult scales come off and stick to the hand, 

 and that the parr scales and marks were still 

 there, having been only covered by the smoult 

 scales. The fish, when undergoing this process, 

 changes its nature altogether, for instead of being 

 a firm, wiry fish, as the parr is, it becomes soft 

 and easily injured in short, it seems to have 

 undergone a new birth. When the smoult re- 

 turns as a grilse, its scales come off with the 

 slightest handling, and it is only when it returns 

 as a salmon, or has been long enough in the sea, 

 that the scales become rigid and firm. 



EXODUS, 1857. 



The fry of the hatching of 1856 having shown 

 symptoms of becoming smoults this year, 1857, 

 by the first week in April the keeper was on the 

 outlook for the departure of the first shoal, which 

 took place on the 12th, being a month earlier 

 than the first exodus of the hatching of 1854; 

 which we have no doubt was caused by the 

 winter of 1856-57 being much milder than 

 1854-55. As the marking of the smoults of the 

 previous hatching with rings had failed, Mr 

 Paton, of Messrs Paton & Walsh, gunmakers, 



