SIZE OF PAKR AT TWO YEARS OLD. 305 



tinguish the undoubted salmon fry. He instances 

 one of those of two years old, when it had assumed 

 its migratory dress, and measured about six and 

 a half inches, the average size of the brood. 

 Touching this fact Mr. Scrope exclaims, " Two 

 years, mark this, and only six inches and a 

 half long ! It then goes to the sea, the first floods 

 in May (two years or more after incubation), and 

 returns in two or three months, as it may happen, 

 when it is called a gilse, and is increased to the 

 size of from four to seven pounds, and indeed very 

 considerably more, being larger or smaller in pro- 

 portion to the time it has remained in the sea. 

 A second visit to the sea gives it another increase, 

 when it returns to the river as a salmon. This 

 appears so wonderful and extraordinary a de- 

 parture from the general laws of nature, that it is 

 no wonder that the most scientific men have been 

 misled." A gilse may be larger than a salmon, 

 by one fish remaining a longer period in the sea 

 during its first visit, than another during its first 

 and second. 



Another experiment is more curious and con- 

 clusive if possible than the above, for it shows 

 that the male parr will impregnate the ova of the 

 female salmon, and that the male parrs, the off- 

 spring of this impregnation, will breed with other 

 salmon, and therefore are not hybrids. "In 

 January, 1837," says Mr. Shaw, "I took a female 



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