166 ANGLING. 



could have alleged as a fact capable of demonstra- 

 tion, without the tentative, long continued, and now 

 perfectly conclusive experiments of Mr. Shaw.* 



The ingenious observer just named, has not only 

 settled this disputed point to our own satisfaction, 

 and consequently to that of the world in general, but 

 has, moreover, carried on his practical researches to 

 illustrate, if not explain, that singular peculiarity 

 already alluded to, viz. the sexual maturity of the 

 male parr. The frequent observance of this matu- 

 rity, and of the association of parr and female adult 

 salmon, suggested the idea of the following curious 

 and successful experiment. In the month of Janu- 

 ary, Mr. Shaw took a female salmon, weighing 14 

 Ibs., from her natural spawning-bed from whence 

 he also took a male parr, weighing 1^ oz. With 

 the milt of the latter, he fecundated the ova of the 

 former, and placing the spawn in the streamlet 

 which feeds one of his ponds, he watched its growth, 

 as he had that of the salmon spawn fecundated in 

 the ordinary way, and found both the hatching and 

 subsequent growth to correspond, in all points, with 

 the usual on-goings of nature. These experiments 

 were repeated with the same results during the 

 winter of 1838, and the parrs (taken from the 



* In the present summary of the great parr question, we avail 

 ourselves, in the first place, of our own exquisite knowledge of the 

 subject ; secondly, of Mr. Shaw's earlier papers published in the 

 Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (July 1836 January 1838), and 

 of his more recent communication on the same subject, crowned by 

 the Keith Testimonial (Transactions oftlio Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 vol. xiv. Part II.) ; and thirdly, of a learned and lucid exposition of 

 the case in a late Number (CCXCIV.) of Blackicood's Edinburgh 

 Magazine, very generally attributed to Lord John Russell. 



