42 THE SALMON. 



surprise. He found that the parr in his ponds remained 

 unchanged and stationary during the second year of their 

 existence, but assumed the migratory dress after enter- 

 ing on their third year ; and that in its second winter, 

 being then in its eighteenth or twentieth month, the 

 male parr (alone) arrives at sexual maturity, and does, 

 or can, impregnate the ova of the adult female salmon. 

 It will be seen at once that there were two points here 

 almost inviting attack — that as to the young of the 

 salmon remaining two years before migration, and that 

 as to the precocious and anomalous development of the 

 young male. But because there was in both cases an 

 apparent anomaly, were we bound to conclude, as many 

 people did, and even do, that there was an actual error ? 

 On the contrary, we were bound to give Mr. Shaw's 

 statements and reasonings the more respectful considera- 

 tion when we found that- he had as it were endangered 

 the reception of the great truth which his experiments 

 settled — that the parr is the young of the salmon — by 

 adding two startling statements on other points, simply 

 because they had been evolyed in the course of his in- 

 quiries. It shows at least that he entered on and con- 

 ducted his experiments, not to maintain a theory, but to 

 discover the truth. 



It may simplify the discussion, to dispose at once and 

 in a few words of the subordinate or incidental question 

 of the impregnation of the ova of the female adult salmon 

 by the milt of the male parr. Of course there is an ap- 

 parent anomaly in the system thus alleged to exist in 

 the salmon race, of marriage between couples where the 

 husband measures only about as many inches as the wife 



