FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



spring they appear as " parr," bearing a close resemblance in appearance 

 and habits to common brook trout. At this stage they are exposed to many 

 relentless persecutors, chief among which are pike, eels, mergansers, 

 cormorants and other predaceous creatures. Trout-fishers, also, exact a 

 heavy toll upon them, unless water bailiffs are ceaselessly vigilant; many 

 do so in ignorance, believing these little fish to be undersized trout; but 

 there are plenty of unscrupulous fellows who know well enough what they 

 are doing, for salmon-parr makes a very toothsome dish. 



In the second autumn the parr, being about eighteen months old, ought 

 to measure five or six inches in length. In the following spring those which 

 have attained these dimensions begin to undergo a singular metamor- 

 phosis. Their trout-like livery assumes a silvery lustre which gradually 

 obscures the characteristic "parr -marks " (nine dark vertical bars along 

 each side) and the scarlet spots and yellow flanks ; the little fish becomes 

 much more athletic in figure, restless in its movements and is clad from 

 end to end with a lovely shining coat of silver. This is his travelling dress 

 and as soon as it is complete he starts in life as a " smolt " and hurries 

 away with his companions to the sea. This migration takes place in April, 

 May and June, British smolts being then a few weeks more than two or 

 three years old, according to their forwardness in growth. The majority 

 of British smolts probably move seaward in their second spring, though 

 a proportion are known to remain in the river until their third season; but 

 in Norwegian rivers Herr Dahl has ascertained that the age of smolts at 

 migration varies between two and five winters, those in southern rivers 

 migrating early, and the tendency to linger in the rivers increasing to- 

 wards high latitudes.* 



Desperate perils await these tender little fish on their journey. Seagulls 

 collect on the shallows and pick out thousands of potential twenty-pounders, 

 and — sad to say — ^river trout are as bad as any pike or eel in devouring 

 smolts. I have never seen a parr in the stomach of a trout; perhaps the 

 young salmon is so well disguised in that stage of growth that trout do 

 not distinguish them from their own kin, and spare them accordingly. 

 But it is quite different after the parr has assumed the silver uniform of 

 the smolt. I have seen seven salmon smolts taken from the stomach of a 

 trout caught with fly in the Helmsdale river. This trout's gross weight was 

 IJlb., but one-third of that weight was furnished by the contents of its 

 stomach. Still more deplorable was the result of dissecting a Norwegian 



*The Aft and Growth of Salmon and Trout in Norway, by Knut Dahl, pp. 34, 35. 



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