682 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
weight, and grilsé weighing four pounds. The smolts of the first 
year return from the sea, while their brothers and sisters are timidly 
disporting in the breeding shallows of the upper streams.” A late 
sea-going smolt explains the anomaly of a spring salmon. 
It thus appears that, in this first stage, the young.salmon (Fig. 380) 
is called a parr, during the second it is a smolt, namely a parr plus 
a jacket of silvery scales. While they continue in the state of a 
they lead a secluded life, totally unable to endure salt water, which 
would kill them. When they have become smolts the fish betake 
themselves in troops to the sea. The sea-feeding being favourable, 
and the fish strong enough for the salt water, a rapid growth is the 
consequence. After that they disappear, spreading themselves over 
the wide world of the ocean. At the end of two months of a life 
mysterious and so far unknown, these fishes reappear in the rivers, 
returning to their native pools ; but how changed! Quantum mutati / 
The smolt, which has lived in the rivers two or three years, and only 
attdined the length of six or eight inches, returns at the end of two 
months’ sojourn in the sea, weighing three to four pounds, and, after 
six months’, ter. or twelve pounds. It is now a grilse. 
After depositing their eggs the grilse remain some time in the 
fresh water, when they again go to the sea. This second sojourn, of 
about two months, is sufficient to send it back weighing from six to 
twelve pounds. “It is now an adult salmon. Each new visit to the 
sea brings the salmon back increased in size in proportion to the 
duration of the voyage. In the month of March, 1845, the Duke of 
Athole topk a salmon in the Tay after it had deposited its eggs; he 
marked it by attaching a metal label to it. It weighed ten pounds. 
The same individual, with its metal label, was again fished up after 
five weeks and three days’ absence. It now weighed twenty-one 
pounds, having in the meantime travelled forty miles down the 
river to the sea. This fish must, however, have made a long 
sea’ run during these thirty-eight days and its seeking up the river 
_again. 
In most circumstances, according to Mr. Blanchard, to whom we 
are indebted for much information relative to the development and 
migration of these fishes, salmon of various ages, which have never- 
theless sojourned in the.sea_as grilse, adult salmon, and others inter- 
mediate between them, whose first sojourn at sea has extended to 
eight or ten months, ascend the rivers together in an order no less 
varied, the older individuals heading the column, the youngest bring- 
ing up the rear. 
When the period for depositing their eggs approaches, a male and 
