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8 Fisnineg iv American WATERS. 
The second is when it puts on the silvery scales of the grilse, 
which occurs when it is about to emigrate to the sea. It ap- 
pears as if the little pet, when in the parr state, required some 
provision against the novel effects of salt water which it is 
about to encounter, for nature furnishes it with a new suit 
of scales, bright and silvery as those of the parent salmon. 
These begin to develop themselves just previously to the 
first migration of the fish. The scales form apparently over 
the old skin, and in doing so they obscure the parr marks, 
and the fish becomes a smolt, or a miniature grilse ; but that 
it is the same fish may easily be seen by rubbing off'a few of 
those new scales, when the parr marks are plainly seen which 
were hidden beneath them. These seales are at this time 
very lightly attached to the skin, and can be easily detached, 
coming off even by the mere handling of the fish; and this 
insecurity of the attachment of the scales continues through- 
out the whole period of grilsehood, or until the fish becomes 
a veritable and mature salmon, when whether it develops a 
new suit of scales is not known, but the scales certainly be- 
come much more firmly fixed to the skin, and are far more 
difficult to remove. But the point in debate is how long the 
parr remains in the river before it becomes a smolt. Now 
experiment has shown us thus much, viz., that a large por- 
tion of the parr become smolts in about fifteen months, that 
is, supposing them to have been hatched from the egg in the 
fall, or say in the winter. They live in the river over the 
next autumn, and do not become smolts and migrate to sea 
until the next succeeding spring. It has been found that a 
very large proportion of them do not become smolts and mi- 
erate even then, but stay in the river yet another year, and 
so do not put on the smolt scale and migrate until the next 
succeeding spring. Thus some remain in the rivers altogeth- 
er two years and two or three months, and others remain 
even for another year still, and do not migrate till the third 
year. These facts for a long time puzzled naturalists, and 
gaye rise to the supposition that there was another fish of 
