88 THE SCOTTISH ANGLER. 



milter, the female to deposit her roe, arid the male, not 

 merely to impregnate, but guard the spawn against the 

 attacks of trout and smaller fish, which naturally, in- 

 stead of doing the same office, molest and devour it : 

 and in the case of trout roe, the reverse happens ; it is 

 a favourite food of the salmon, and not likely to be im- 

 pregnated by him, who is known to watch so devoutly 

 the operations of his own spawner. Hence, a very 

 meagre portion indeed of the ova can possibly, and that 

 by chance, when the water is heavy, be so crossed as 

 to produce mules, if such a production were the con- 

 sequence. How, then, is the fact of par being found 

 in such large numbers reconcileable (supposing them 

 to be mules) with the other fact of the comparatively 

 accidental crossing which takes place between the 

 salmon and trout ? We submit the question to the 

 maintainers of this theory for a solution. Again, what 

 is the ground upon which the opinion is founded, that 

 par are a sort of mules ? Simply this, that they are 

 incapable of breeding, that they have no spawners 

 among them, and are all possessed seemingly of the 

 same sexual structure. But is this the case with the 

 mules of other animals ? For instance, in those of 

 quadrupeds, are not the male and female generative 

 parts as individually developed as in the two sexes from 

 whose crossing the mules originated ? The seeming 

 identity of sex, coupled of course with the incapacity 

 of the par to extend its species, can form no argument 

 in favour of its being held as a mule. Besides, they 

 who reckon the par to be without roe, are, if we mis- 

 take not, greatly in error ; for we have noticed again 

 and again, what to us certainly appeared an incipient 

 spawn lying under the back-bone of many of these fish 

 which substance has a yellowish colour, and is long 

 in the shape like the roe of the salmon. We were led 



