NEW THEORY OP THE PARR. 91 



He suggests that the parr is simply a young salmon ; that it 

 remains a year in the river after leaving the gravel, or, in other 

 words, adopts the views, in this last point, of Mr. Young, of 

 Iiivershin: that on assuming the silvery dress it migrates 

 towards the sea with the spawning fish of that year, and that 

 this is the reason why no parr are caught in Teviot and Tweed 

 during the months of April and May, they having all assumed 

 the smolt colouring. But as the parr, meaning young salmon of 

 the present year, begin to grow, they naturally reappear in the 

 rivers in June, July, &c. ; continuing to grow until next 

 spring, when they also leave as smolts. To meet other 

 difficulties, Mr. S. conjectures for all is conjecture here that 

 it is when the young are in the parr form that the fecundating 

 act takes place ; the roe of the female parr being impregnated by 

 the male when the ova are at their minimum of development, the 

 milt of the parr being then at its maximum ; and that the 

 presence of the male full-grown salmon, at the moment the 

 grown female deposits the ova in the spawning trough, is an 

 accidental " circumstance, and not at all essential to secure the 

 forthcoming brood of smolts." 



It is scarcely necessary to add that these ingenious views are 

 based neither on experiment nor observation. They seem merely 

 like discoveries in Egyptian hieroglyphics, to solve one enigma 

 by creating a dozen new ones, still more perplexing to chrono- 



I have already remarked that parr seem to desert some rivers, 

 for a time at least, from causes as yet unknown. Thus, in July, 

 of twenty -two dozen trout caught in the Whitwater near Mill- 

 know, there was not a single parr. On the other hand, in some 

 rivers they are most abundant nearly at all times. In August, 

 1832, four hours' very careful fishing with fly and worm pro- 

 duced nothing but forty-three parrs ; twenty-four males, and 

 nineteen females. The parr has a layer of fat along the tract of 

 the intestine, which is not present in the trout or salmon. 

 They are more tenacious of life than the smolt, and stiffen 

 readily in the basket. The spleen is oval and small in the parr ; 

 triangular in the trout and salmon. 



On the 29th May, in the Eddlestone, about a mile from 



