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THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF SALMON. 



The development and growth of the salmon, or, in other words, the 

 history of salmon fry, as must be known to many of our readers, has for 

 many years been regarded, by all competent judges, as a most difficult, 

 vexatious, and nearly interminable subject. Nor has it been considered 

 less important than difficult. The subject of the Salmon Fisheries is 

 very much involved in it, one of national importance, which, of late years, 

 notwithstanding repeated parliamentary interference, has fearfully de- 

 clined. Nothing can be more clear than that, until the true history of 

 the salmon and its fry has been accurately made out, legislation must pro- 

 ceed in the dark, and its enactments will probably not only be wide of the 

 mark, but most decidedly injurious. 



This long and vexatious question, we rejoice to announce, has at 

 length been brought to a close ; and that not through the united labours 

 of our associated and able Naturalists, but by the steady and unaided in- 

 vestigations of Mr John Shaw, a most respectable individual in the em- 

 ployment of his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch at Drumlanrig, who, in the 

 face of considerable unscientific opposition, pursued the even tenor of his 

 way, by the simple but satisfactory method of experiment. He has dis- 

 covered and proved that the small river fish, so well known throughout 

 Scotland, under the name of parr, and in various localities throughout the 

 Empire as pinks, brandling?, samlets, fingerlings, gravellings, &c. &c, 

 and scarcely more known than disesteemed as of little or no intrinsic value, 

 are nothing less tnan the young of the due salmon, Sulmo solar. That 

 thfs is a real discovery need scarcely be demonstrated, inasmuch as nearly 

 all the most recent Ichthyological writers, and other Naturalists, have, up to 

 the present time, been, we believe, unanimous in their opinions regarding 

 the specific differences between these parrs and the young salmon fry. 

 We might quote in detail the authorities of Wilson, Yarrell, Jardine, 

 Parnell, and many others on this point, but we shall adduce the words of 

 one only of these distinguished Naturalists, and this merely as a specimen 

 of the rest. " I consider the parr not only distinct, but one of the best 

 and most marked species we have, and that it ought to remain in our 

 systems as the Salmo Samulus of Ray." It is this universally received 

 opinion that Mr Shaw has had the ability and good fortune to overturn 



to the satisfied conviction of those that, a few months ago, were most 



opposed to his views — leaving, so far as we know, not a lingering doubt 

 behind ; and hence a rich reward to his persevering assiduity, leading 

 probably to public profit, as it abundantly has to his private honour ; one 

 proof of which is to be found in its having led the Council of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh to come to the unanimous decision of bestowing 

 upon him its Keith Biennial Medal, for the most important communica- 

 tion presented within the period — an award honourable to the donors, and 

 still more to the receiver. 



Of this discovery, we shall now present a concise view. The author 

 must have been engaged with the investigation for a period of some five 

 or six years, as he first published some of his views as far back as July 

 1836, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. In December 1837, his 

 first paper on the subject was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and his second in December 1839. Instead, however, of attempting to 

 analyze any of these communications in chronological order, we shall pro- 

 duce, in a few words, some of the abundant evidence he has supplied. 



Familiar with the breeding-beds in the river Nith, Mr Shaw first re- 

 moved some salmon spawn which had been deposited and fecundated 

 in the usual way, and placed it in artificial ponds, which he had con- 

 structed with great care, and which he effectually guarded against every 

 thing like foreign mixture. This afforded him an excellent opportunity 

 of examining the development of the spawn, and of tracing the future 

 history of the young fish ; and he found that these little creatures of his 

 ponds were in every respect the same as the parrs of the river. 



This was the first proof that the parr was nothing else than the genuine 

 fry of the young salmon ; but, as there remained something like ground 

 for scepticism, he next thought of so regulating the spawning process, 

 that no suspicion or doubt could remain as to the authenticity and purity 

 of the breed. He accordingly secured a great female salmon in the act 

 of spawning, and isolated her in a pool at the river side ; from this pool 

 he cut a trench, which he made to communicate with an artificial bed, 

 hollowed out by himself. The sides of the female, thus isolated, were 

 now gently pressed, the spawn floated along the trench, and rested in 

 the artificial bed. This effected, a great male salmon was next intro- 

 duced into the pool ; his milt was in like manner shed, flowed along the 

 same trough, and reposed in the same bed. After a while, this fecun- 

 dated spawn was removed to the experimental pond, was maintained free 

 from all subsequent contamination, and its future history, from the ovum 

 and for many months, demonstrated that it was a parr, agreeing with the 

 common river ones, and in nothing distinguishable from them. Hence 

 the inference was conclusive that the young of the salmon was really the 

 parr. 



But the parr being the young of the salmon, it must needs follow that 



with age these parr will assume the appearance of salmon, and this Mr 

 Shaw has most effectually demonstrated. In his experimental ponds 

 he detained the parr, and noted their successive changes. Whilst yet 

 undistinguishable in appearance, and allowed by all competent judges to 

 be genuine parr, he killed and preserved some to serve as objects of com- 

 parison, and found that after a given time, the whole remaining fry 

 changed its dress and its habits, and now could be regarded by no one as 

 the previously considered distinct species of parr ; but, on the other hand, 

 was acknowledged by all to be genuine young salmon, in their sil very migra- 

 tory livery. The effects of the surrounding temperature on this change were 

 all carefully noted by Mr Shaw, but our space forbids us to state them. 

 Suffice it to note, that the spawn deposited the end of January left the ova 

 only on the 10th of May, the very day on which large shoals of salmon 

 fry were descending towards the ocean. These shoals have generally 

 been regarded as the spawn of the same year, whereas thev were far ad- 

 vanced in their second year's growth. 



But this is not all. Every one who has attended to the habits of sal- 

 mon is aware that during the process of spawning, the adult female is 

 frequently attended not by the adult male, but by the tiny parr, whose 

 milt during the while is copiously flowing in due proportion to that of 

 the female spawn. Mr Shaw conceived that this might be proof, how- 

 ever singular the occurrence, of the identity of the species ; and this he 

 determined to subject to the test of experiment- Accordingly, he repeated, 

 in an isolated pool, with the adult female salmon and the parr, the ex- 

 periment which has already been related of the adult salmon. The milt 

 of the parr, thus brought into contact with the spawn of the salmon, was 

 removed from the artificial bed into the experimental pond, and was found 

 in the course of months to exhibit precisely the same appearances, first, 

 of true parr, and then of genuine silvery salmon fry, as the others had 

 done. In the view that here there was not complete identity of species, 

 this latter brood would be considered hybrid, and, according to the gener. 

 ally received notions, mules or neuters, and so incapable of propagating 

 their kind. This point also has been investigated by Mr Shaw, and, 

 finally, one of those, by possibility, hybrids has been made to play the 

 part of the true male salmon, and the acknowledged genuine parr, and 

 with precisely the same result, so that his progeny has been as distinctly, as 

 in the other cases, first, the true parr, and then the undisputed young sal- 

 mon. To conclude, we must state that Mr Shaw has not omitted to col- 

 lect the spawn of the female salmon before it was subjected to any of the 

 fecundations above alluded to, and has placed it in an experimental pond, 

 and with the result which he and others would anticipate, viz. that it 

 never manifested the slightest appearance of vitality. 



We feel we are still far from having completed the account of the in- 

 teresting particulars which we have heard and read as connected with 

 Mr Shaw's important investigations, and to which we would again gladly 

 return ; but we are equally sure that though we cannot have exhausted 

 the interest of the reader, we have far exceeded the usual limits we allow 

 to any, even the most interesting subject. 



ON THE SEALS OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



The following observations, made by Mr Kenneth Fergusson, a native of 

 Harris, have been transmitted to us by Alexander M'Rae, Esq. of Asker- 

 nish, South Uist. 



Two species of Seal are to be found on the shores and in the sounds 

 of the Long Island, or Outer Hebrides. One of them occurs in the 

 open sea, principally among the rocks in the Western Ocean, but also 

 about rocks distant from the shore on the eastern side of the islands. 

 This kind, in the language of the country, which alway designates an 

 animal by a term expressive of some remarkable trait in its form or cha- 

 racter, is named Tabli-bhiast, or Ocean-beast ; the other is named Biast- 

 caolis, or Channel-beast, from its frequenting the narrow sounds. 



The first is much the largest, and, when full-grown, of a dirty or dull 

 whitish colour. When young, the pile is about two inches and a half 

 long, and fine or woolly ; that of the old animal is shorter, thinly set, 

 and strong. The woolly pile is shed when the animal is about three 

 months old. These Seals have their young about the first days of No- 

 vember, or a little earlier, and bring them forth on shore, selecting unin- 

 habited grassy islands, such as Tabhocer, near Cannay, Causamal, and 

 another rock also named Tabhocer, both off the west coast of North 

 Uist, as well as many similar islands along the western side of the Outer 

 Hebrides. From its place of birth the cub never ventures until able to 

 shift for himself, which he is supposed to do in about a month, although 

 this is not certain. During this time, they are to be found in great num- 

 bers on such rocks as those described ; the males, and those which have 

 no young, among the rest. Advantage is taken of this circumstance, 

 and they are slaughtered with clubs, great numbers being frequently ob- 

 tained. At this time the young are about the size of a Cheviot lamb in 

 November, that is, three feet or so in length. In a month after, they are 



