THE SEVERN SALMON. 225 



numerous scarlet spots are scattered over its body. Many dis- 

 cussions have arisen to prove or disprove this being the young 

 Salmon, and it has been pointed out that in rivers destitute 

 of Salmon there are no parrs, and where parrs exist there are 

 Salmon. The question is now set at rest by eggs having been 

 taken direct from Salmon and artificially hatched, the young 

 produced being parrs. The parrs in their second or third year, 

 about the month of May, begin to be restless, assuming a silvery 

 or smolt dress, and, assembling in shoals, drop down the river 

 towards the sea. Here again it has been asserted that smolts 

 are not parrs. A number of the latter were placed in a fresh- 

 water tank in the Brighton Aquarium, and when the month of 

 May came round all but four assumed the silvery livery of the 

 migratory smolt. Sea-water was now gradually introduced, when 

 all became smolts ! 



We have now traced the Salmon-eggs to the fry, these to 

 the Trout-looking parr, and the latter to the silvery smolt that 

 descends to the sea. These smolts when reappearing from the 

 sea, do not present the same appearance as when they entered it, 

 but assume a larger form, weighing more pounds than they did 

 ounces — miniature Salmon, termed " grilse," which ascend in 

 shoals. These by popular repute were the intermediate stage 

 between the smolts and the Salmon, being supposed to be those 

 forms which descended to the sea, where they remained one or 

 two seasons and then returned, mostly to the river where they 

 were originally bred. Russell tells us that of all the smolts which 

 were marked by the attachment of rings, or other effective means, 

 none were obtained until the second year, or fifteen months after 

 they had been turned loose. These " grilse," or young Salmon, 

 ascend from the sea, and some of them breed, but do not deposit 

 so many eggs as do the old Salmon : after a time they descend 

 again as grilse-kelts, coming back subsequently from the sea as 

 Salmon. 



Salmon enter our rivers in varying numbers throughout the 

 year, unless impurities (as in the Thames) have annihilated the 

 breed. At certain times, as during the cold season, they ascend 

 the Severn for the purpose of reaching their spawning-beds, and 

 having deposited their eggs in the redds, as described, they descend 

 to the sea in a miserable condition, many of the males succumbing 

 from exhaustion. At this period the female fish is known 



2g 



