Phenomena of Instinct. 155 



three or four months, they are again found in the river, 

 taking advantage of each flood or "spate" to make 

 their way from pool to pool, up to their old haunts, and 

 once more deserving to be called salmon, until they are 

 again reduced to the state of kelts by a repetition of the 

 process of laying and fertilizing eggs. After escaping 

 from the egg the young fish remains in the river for one 

 or two years. Before venturing sea-wards the name 

 given to it is smolt or parr : on returning to the river 

 it is called, after its first visit to the sea, grilse or salmon- 

 peal, after subsequent visits, salmon. There may, per- 

 haps, be some doubt as to the identity of smolts and 

 parr : but that which has been based upon the fact that 

 parr have been found with perfect milts, or soft roes, is 

 certainly of no moment, for smolts, not more than an 

 ounce and a half in weight, have been found in the 

 same case, with milts so perfect as to be capable of 

 fertilizing the ova of adult salmon. There is also no 

 superabundance of information respecting the salmon, 

 but this is certain, that when the fish is sufficiently 

 developed to deserve the name of salmon it migrates 

 year after year with unfailing regularity from river to 

 sea and from sea back again to river, that it returns 

 from every fresh immersion in salt-water amazingly 

 increased in size and that, once in the river, it must go 

 on and on, in spite of torrents and waterfalls, from pool 

 to pool, until it reaches the place in which it emerged 

 from the egg. He who has watched the salmon leaping 

 in the rapids of a mountain torrent to the wild music of 

 the rushing waters can scarcely wonder that the Greek 

 of old should have fancied that Pan was within hearing, 

 higher up the stream, calling the fish up to him with his 

 pipes. He will find it difficult, if he think at all, to 

 entertain the notion that a creature so low in the scale 



