88 NATURAL HISTOEY OF THE SALMON. 



but the Stormontfield experiment, having been 

 done on a more extensive scale, and repeated from 

 year to year, with the same results, has settled the 

 question. Almost all fishermen and superficial 

 observers believed, because there were parrs to 

 be found in salmon rivers at all times, the parr 

 was a distinct fish ; but the experiment has shown 

 that this error was likely to arise from one-half of 

 the hatching of a fish's ova becoming smoults the 

 first year, the other half remaining in the river 

 for another year as parrs, and in some few in- 

 stances for three years, ere they are ready to 

 migrate. These observers, also, never took it into 

 account that the fry of the salnio trutta (sea 

 trout), salmo eriox (bull trout), salmo fario (com- 

 mon trout), are all parr in their young state all 

 marked with transverse bars in nearly the same 

 manner, the difference between them and the parr 

 of the salmo salar, or salmon, being so slight that, 

 except to the naturalist, little or no distinction is 

 perceptible hence the number of fry that was 

 constantly destroyed in the parr state must have 

 been great it was only when migratory parrs be- 

 came smoults that they were protected by law. 

 We also learn that the ova of salmon, at least, are 

 not fecundated until they leave the fish, and that 



