INTRODUCTORY xxiii 
the differences between the parr and the young 
salmon. Those of us who have grown up since 
Shaw’s time can scarcely understand how the parr 
could have been regarded as a distinct species, far 
less the extraordinary controversy which the dis- 
covery was the means of starting. Yet those early 
disputes gave the stimulus needed for investigation 
over a wider area. Since the earliest attempts at 
salmon marking, at artificial culture, and the rearing 
and crossing of different salmonids, as well as by the 
study of the different runs of fish in our rivers, and 
by the results of netting salmon on our coasts, a 
body of information has slowly been accumulating. 
Disjointed and very imperfect as this information 
has undoubtedly been, it has nevertheless served to 
indicate the lines along which more systematic infor- 
mation should be sought. 
A signal endeavour to crystallise our views in 
this particular was the publication of Mr. Willis 
Bund’s ‘‘Salmon Problems,” a book which has un- 
doubtedly done a great deal to advance the genuine 
search after radical facts in the life of the salmon. 
Since this book was penned the doings of the salmon 
have been followed with greater precision, and the 
fish has, as it were, been made to tell his own tale 
to a greater extent. The reliable identification of fish 
caught, set at liberty, and recaptured has been the 
means, through the instrumentality of the Fishery 
Board for Scotland and the Board of Agriculture 
and Fisheries in Ireland, of providing us with an 
amount of information as to migrations and increase 
of weight hitherto unapproached. Investigations as 
