GREAT SIZE OF THE MILT IN THE MALE PARE. 85 



granted that the laws of hybridity, in all animals, correspond 

 strictly with what happens in the horse and ass. I am sure 

 that no educated man will expect me to argue with persons who 

 hold such views. 



Lastly, it is well known, that although in the female parr, at 

 no time is the roe developed, yet in the male at certain, or 

 rather, as I shall show, at uncertain periods of the year, the 

 milt suddenly increases to a size disproportionate to the fish. 

 With the milt of this fish, some five or six inches in length, the 

 eggs of the true full-grown salmon have been artificially fecun^ 

 dated ; the product being true salmon. 



In such experiments I see nothing remarkable. They do not 

 prove the male parr to be a salmon. On the contrary, the growth 

 of the milt in the parr is an unnatural and abnormal phenomenon, 

 proving directly the contrary, proving it not to be the true 

 salmon. All the world knows that towards the end of April, 

 and beginning of May, the salmon smolt, varying from five 

 to six inches in length, often larger than any parr, abounds in 

 salmon rivers ; but no one ever saw the milt or roe developed in 

 these smolts. How comes it, then, that in the parr, if a salmon, 

 the milt should be developed a year before it becomes a smolt ? 

 It is singular enough that in parr with the milt thus developed, 

 we do not find that the individual has deteriorated in quality as 

 is the case in other fish similarly situated. True, it may be said 

 that this is not the period for the growth of the milt ; but I 

 shall show presently that this remark does not apply to the parr, 

 which shows the milt developed at seasons of the year in which 

 no salmon is ever found with these organs progressing towards 

 a fecundating condition. 



The phenomenon then is an abnormal and irregular one, proving 

 the parr to belong to no peculiar species of fish, but a hybrid of 

 several sorts ; that the word parr is, in fact, a generic term for 

 the young of several species of the salmonida?, of which some 

 are regular and constant, others irregular and hybrid. 



FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 

 THE PARR. 



Is it worth while writing the history of an animal which 

 perhaps exists not as a distinct species ? In this case, I think it 



