1 86 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



unlearned men of the open air find their way to the truth 

 before those of the museum and laboratory, but in this instance 

 practical fishermen divined the secret earliest, as may be seen 

 from a passage in Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, published in 

 1828. " Eachin resembles Conachar," said the glover, "no 

 more than a salmon resembles a parr, though men say they 

 are the same fish in a different state." The question was not 

 settled until Mr. Shaw had conducted a lengthy series of 

 experiments in the Stormontfield ponds during a number 

 of consecutive years from 1830 onwards. His report, printed 

 in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal^ 1836, followed by 

 a paper he read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1837, 

 left no room for doubt as to the identity of salmon and parr, 

 although, as above mentioned, Couch stoutly refused to adopt 

 this conclusion. 



At the age of fifteen months, the majority of salmon parr, 

 which have lived so far like common brook-trout, feeding on 

 The Smolt i^sects, worms, and such-like small prey, begin to get 

 stage, restless, to drop out of the rivulets which have 

 hitherto harboured them, and to congregate in shoals in the 

 main river. Some individuals postpone this movement till they 

 are seven-and-twenty months old, or thereby, but it is probable 

 that a large majority prepare for the sea trip in April and May of 

 their second spring. This movement is heralded by a remark- 

 able change in the appearance of the fish, which now measure 

 on an average about five inches in length. The olive green of 

 the back turns into a bluish tint, and the gay motley of the 

 sides, never more brilliant than at this season, is hidden by the 

 secretion of guanin under the scales, which gives a uniform 

 covering of brilliant silvery lustre, known to fishermen as the 

 sea-jacket. In this new guise they make their way to the sea, 

 where, as they divine by hereditary instinct, more abundant 

 provender awaits them than they can find in their native 

 streams. 



We lose sight of the smolts now, and for an uncertain 



