64 AMERICAN FISHES. 



more than a dubious point, whether the fish, so stopped from migra- 

 tion to the sea, will ever acquire power to reproduce their own species. 



It is a singular fact, that the Salmon propagates its kind before it is 

 adult — the grilse, on its return from the sea in its second year, having 

 the roo and milt far advanced, and spawning that same autumn. The 

 ova in the grilse differ not in size, but in number only, from those of 

 the adult Salmon of a year's later . growth, and there is no known 

 difference between the fry of the young and full-grown fish. 



It will prove to be the fact, I have no doubt, that in this country these 

 fish spawn earlier in the season than in Great Britain ; indeed, they 

 must do so, for in the month of January the head-waters of the rivers 

 which they frequent are masses of solid ice ; and I presume it will be 

 found that the ova are deposited and covered with gravel in the months 

 of September and October, and in all probability that the parent fish 

 return to the salt-water the same autumn, or early in the winter, 

 before the closing of the rivers. This is, however, little important. 



I now come to the second point, proved beyond all doubt by these 

 experiments ; videlicet, that the Salmon, in the first stage of his exist- 

 ence, is, to all intents and purposes, what is commonly called a Parr. 



Most, if not all, of my readers, are probably aware that, in some 

 particular streams of Great Britain, there has been found invariably 

 a small fish of the Salmon family, never attaining to any considerable 

 size or weight, and distinguishable from Trout only -by the presence 

 of the bluish gray, or olive, ^ansverse bands alluded to above, and 

 figured in the cut of Pinks, at the head of this article ; as also again 

 in the plate at the head of that on the Brook Trout, Salmo Fontinalis, 

 next following. 



Concerning this little fish, there has been a continual doubt, and a 

 dispute of many years' standing, some persons maintaining that it was 

 a distinct, and reproductive species of the Salmonidee, which they 

 termed variously Parr, Samlet, Brandling, and so forth. Others, from 

 its never being taken of any size, have believed it to be an unproduc- 

 tive cross, or mule, between the Salmon and the common Trout, the 

 sea Trout and common Trout, &c, &c. ; and others yet again, that 

 it was neither more nor less than a young Salmon. 



In proof of this, it was adduced that Parr had been marked and 

 retaken as Grilse 



